Roxanna Panufnik

Roxanna has a great love of world music – this has culminated in her “Four World Seasons” for violinist Tasmin Little, the world premiere of which was picked by BBC Radio 3 to launch their Music Nations weekend, celebrating the London Olympics.

She is especially interested in building musical bridges between faiths and her first project in this field was the violin concerto “Abraham”, commissioned for Daniel Hope, incorporating Christian, Islamic and Jewish chant to create a musical analogy for the fact that these three faiths believe in the same one God. This work was subsequently converted into an overture for the World Orchestra for Peace and premiered in Jerusalem and London under the baton of Valery Gergiev, in 2008 and at the 2014 BBC Proms.

Her 2017 opera “Silver Birch”, commissioned by Garsington Opera, was met with great audience and critical acclaim.

Imminent premieres include ”Songs of Love and Friendship” for the Netherlands Radio Choir with violinist Daniel Rowland at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in July 2021 and “Ever Us” for the Rundfunk Chor Berlin plus 9 other choirs from all over the world, to be premiered at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2022. She is currently writing a new opera “Dalia” for Garsington, for 2022.

Compositions featuring in 2022 Festival:
Amanda and Cantator performed by Hill Quartet & Bram van Sambeek
Clarinet Quintet performed by Signum Quartet & Matthew Hunt