Performance Reviews

Review of "A Berkeley Celebration", July 2023

… If [sacred choral music] is not to be consigned to history, it needs to be maintained, refreshed, renewed. And playing no small part in that endeavour is The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music which has just had its 2023 season with events spread across 40 or so venues around the capital. LFCCM sets out to encourage composers of…

Danse Macabre 2013 - Church Times Review

So passes the glory of the world Roderic Dunnett hears a work inspired by a grim image of Death, the great leveller While concentrating on music for the liturgy and anthems for services, the annual London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, which has taken up the torch from Michael Nicholas – high-achieving (formerly triennial) celebrations in Norwich Cathedral, has matched…

Philip Moore Concert 2013 - Church Times Review

Seventieth-birthday tribute to composer Roderic Dunnett on a Philip Moore focus for a London festival Philip Moore was still the organist of York Minster when I encountered a double cassette of his music a decade ago. It included more than two hours of choral music, and some organ music; and it struck me that every single piece – fresh, thoughtfully…

The Tablet, May 2012

Deep maternal instincts Roxanna Panufnik: Magnificat ST PANCRAS CHURCH, LONDON St Hildegard of Bingen set to music the “Magnificat”, Mary’s exultant post-Annunciation poem to music, but, so far as we know, did so like all men, without the experience of childbirth behind her. Of female composers, Elisabeth Lutyens set it after having had children, and mother-of-three Roxanna Panufnik has provided…

Exultate Singers, 19th May 2012

Exultate Singers in Roxanna Panufnik Premières by Paul Kilbey via Bachtrack Contemporary religious music can seem to exist in a different world to the rest of contemporary music, and rarely since Messiaen was in his prime has there been much evidence of it as a really progressive wing of composition. But unlike much new music, new religious music is often…

Church Times Review 2011

Contemporary sacred strains Roderic Dunnett on recent concerts of old and new music For a whole concert on the South Bank in London to be given over to one composer, he or she must have achieved a certain standing. Cecilia McDowall has just received an honour of this kind at the Purcell Room, where her music was sung by the…

The Independent, Review May 2010

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music by Michael Church Professional critics who take their hatchets to amateur performances should beware: as a member of Highgate Choral Society, I know whereof I speak. This 180-strong group has a venerable history, and a rather good opinion of itself: it learns new music quickly, and contains within its ranks some fine choristers….

Church Times Review, May 2009

Nine days of the serious stuff by Roderic Dunnett The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, based at St Pancras Church, has filled a huge gap in the church-music calendar. In effect (as its Norwich equivalent used to be), the festival is a compact, nine-day showcase of what is happening in the field of serious composing for the Anglican liturgy….

Church Times Review, June 2007

A ‘Proms’ of Mass and canticle by Roderic Dunnett Since the demise of Norwich Cathedral’s Festival of Contemporary Church Music, the torch for encouraging the commissioning and performance of new church music has passed to the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, based at St Pancras Church under its versatile artistic director, Christopher Batchelor. Now in its sixth year, the…

Church Times Review, June 2006

New ways with the canticles The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music does, as they say, what it says on the tin. A week-long celebration at St Pancras Parish Church, directed by Christopher Batchelor, it is now in its fifth year. It is a noble enterprise, and it was good to see it gain additional publicity through a broadcast of…