Janet Wheeler

Composer

A junior exhibitioner at the Guildhall School of Music from the age of 10, Janet Wheeler went on to read music at Cambridge, where she studied composition with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood. After running a secondary school music department, she became a music producer for BBC Schools Radio primary music for eight years, before specialising in composing and conducting. She has been commissioned to write choral works for ORA Singers, The National Youth Choir of Great Britain, The London International Choral Conducting Competition, Sonoro, Papagena, The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, Lincoln’s Inn Chapel Choir, and Ely Cathedral, among others. In 2021 her piece Film Noir, written for Onyx Brass, won a commission for a further brass quintet as the JAM President’s award. Her music is heard in many cathedrals and college chapels and has been performed at Wigmore Hall by I Fagiolini, at the Three Choirs Festival, and sung by BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Chorus on BBC Radio 3.

Her first large-scale work for choir and orchestra was Sea Tongue (2004), setting a text by Kevin Crossley Holland that tells the story of the disappearing coastline at Dunwich. Other large-scale works include I Sing and Ever Shall, commissioned by Southampton Philharmonic Choir in 2016, and The Ceaseless Round of Circling Planets, a commission for the 2016 Thaxted Festival. In her final concert as director of Saffron Walden Choral Society, a group she directed for over 30 years, Janet conducted the première of her latest choral and orchestral work The Measure of a Tree at Saffron Hall. Although she still enjoys conducting chamber choir Granta Chorale and leading a number of school choirs and orchestras, she now focusses more on composing. Ongoing commissions include a work for Edinburgh-based choir Cadenza for performance at the 2023 Fringe Festival, a christening anthem, and a work for brass and choir.

Works by Janet Wheeler

Alleluia, I heard a voice
God is Everywhere
In Every Corner Sing
Missa Brevis pro Baccalariuswith Christopher Batchelor (Composer), Paul Ayres (Composer), Jonathan Wikeley (Composer), Bernard Hughes (Composer), Joshua Ballance (Composer), Richard Pantcheff (Composer), Ronald Corp (Composer), Sarah Cattley (Composer), Tim Ambler (Composer), David McGregor (Composer), Alastair Carey (Editor)