Liz Dilnot Johnson: Gentle Flame (Selected Choral Works)

Description

This album presents some of the music Liz Dilnot Johnson has composed for Ex Cathedra. These carols are inspired by Prof. Kate Raworth, whose book Doughnut Economics encourages a rethinking of global economics to ensure a "safe and just space for humanity to thrive in." The composer says, "I am now seeking ways of cultivating such a space through musical creativity, together with the Ex Cathedra team." The first half of the album presents some of Johnson's earliest works including O Vos with spirals of sopranos unfurling, defined by the Fibonacci Series, written as part of a collaboration with mathematician Prof. Ian Stewart. More recent pieces that have been commissioned and premiered by Ex Cathedra, with whom Liz is composer-in-residence, include Blake Reimagined, a lockdown work originally composed for remote choir (later released on Youtube) with soloists. The range of choral works on this album spans the enormous output across the composer's life, performed with great flair by Ex Cathedra directed by Jeffrey Skidmore. The second half of the album presents one of Johnson's large-scale choral works, When A Child Is A Witness - Requiem for Refugees, winner of the Ivors Composer Award for community and participation (2022). Setting words from the traditional Requiem Mass, along with words from the English Prayer Book, these choral movements encompass a world of music from a simple call and response song to complex and emotionally driven music that takes the listener on an emotional journey, moving from darkness into light.