In good faith

Composer Roxanna Panufnik and writer Jessica Duchen tell Amanda Holloway how they have joined forces for a new choral work that looks well beyond Christmas for its festive celebrations

- 

In 2014, the writer Jessica Duchen came to Roxanna Panufnik with the idea for an 'oratorio' based on winter festivals of Light as celebrated by different world faiths.

The image of the Aurora Borealis, a natural phenomenon with similar impact, would be a unifying secular element. 'We'd been talking about building musical bridges between faiths, and I leapt at it,' says Panufnik, who has also written works using a combination of Christian, Jewish and Islamic chant in Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light in 2018, and in the violin concerto Abraham, rewritten for the World Orchestra for Peace as Three Paths to Peace and performed in Jerusalem and the BBC Proms.

'Music goes straight to the heart,' explains Panufnik, as we talk about the new work in her little garden studio. 'These are universal emotions and we really need to be reminded of that. Someone in Oslo is going to feel that as much as somebody in Oman, for instance.'

Though this particular project had obvious global appeal, it took years before a commission came through: one potential lead foundered because of a change in orchestra personnel, another because of a devastating wildfire in Oregon. Finally, in 2023 Panufnik took it to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), who saw the potential to involve the vibrant multifaith communities in their home city. She also contacted the Northern Lights Festival in Norway and the Arctic Philharmonic became one of the co-commissioners, while the Royal Choral Society offered a London premiere.