Roxanna Panufnik (b.1968) studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music where she gained a G.R.S.M. (Hons), an L.R.A.M. and an A.R.A.M. Since then she has written a wide range of pieces including opera, ballet, music theatre, choral works, chamber music and music for film and television. Her works have been performed all over the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA.
Roxanna’s Westminster Mass (commissioned for Westminster Cathedral Choir on the occasion of Cardinal Hume’s 75th birthday), performed by the Choir and City of London Sinfonia at the Cathedral in May 1998 was overwhelmingly well received by a 2,500-strong congregation and critics alike. The Mass was later recorded by Teldec and released on CD.
The Music Programme – an opera for Polish National Opera’s millennium season received its UK premiere at the BOC Covent Garden Festival in May 2000. Roxanna Panufnik has also written Private Joe, a work for baritone Nigel Cliffe and the Schidlof String Quartet (now orchestrated for Britten Sinfonia). Roxanna’s output also includes arranging and she has undertaken work for EMI (Han-Na Chang) and BMG (Lesley Garrett). In 1996 she reconstructed Dr Samuel Arnold’s 18th Century dialogue opera Inkle & Yarico (including a calypso collaboration with Eddy Grant) premiered by its commissioners at Holders Season, Barbados with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.
Recent compositions comprise Roxanna’s critically acclaimed harp concerto Powers & Dominions; and Beastly Tales, the first of which was a BBC commission for Patricia Rozario and the City of London Sinfonia (all three Tales having recently been released on the EMI British Composers label) and LEDA, a ballet score for English National Ballet and Wratislavia Cantans. 2004 saw the premiere of Letters from Burma for oboist Douglas Boyd and the Vellinger String Quartet, based on the writings of Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi and the following year, her multi-faith violin concerto Abraham commissioned by Savannah Music Festival for Daniel Hope, incorporating Christian, Jewish and Islamic music. Commissions for 2006 – 8 include a large-scale choral/orchestral work Love Abide for the Choral Arts Society, Philadelphia USA, solo works for ‘cellist Han-Na Chang and flautist Emily Beynon, and further choral and chamber works here in the UK, Poland and the USA.
She has also worked for the BBC, as a researcher for television programmes (including Young Musician of the Year and the Proms) and appearing on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review. In November 1993, Roxanna wrote and presented Radio 3’s “Composer of the Week” on her father, Sir Andrzej Panufnik.
Roxanna was the first-ever Composer-in-Residence for the Royal County of Berkshire 1995/96, teaching composition to 300 school children between the ages of four and 18. She has also done educational work for the South Bank Centre/Royal College of Organists, the City of London Sinfonia and ran a composition project (alongside Inkle & Yarico) in schools in Barbados 1996/97.
Further information can be found on
http://www.roxannapanufnik.com
