Lament & Liberation [CD]

The first album from the Choir of St John's with their new music director - Christopher Gray. Leaning into the college's well-established tradition of championing new music, at the heart of the programme are two triptychs: James MacMillan's Cantos Sagrados, composed 35 years ago, and Joanna Marsh's Echoes in Time, commissioned by the College in recent months. There is also a new choral work by Helena Paish and a new organ work by Martin Baker alongside existing works by Roxanna Panufnik and Dobrinka Tabakova. The commissioned works were conceived with the distinctive environment of St Johns' Victorian chapel (designed by George Gilbert Scott and consecrated in May 1869), it's organ and it's fine, world-famous choir which has done service since it's post-Restoration establishment in the 1670s.