JOURNEYING INTO SPACE

'Highly recommended.'

Contemporary music for chorus -
welcomed by SHIRLEY RATCLIFFE

A CD featuring unaccompanied choral music by ten British composers writing between 1960 and 2000 is to be welcomed. The Ionian Singers under their composer/conductor Timothy Salter are no strangers to this sort of enterprise. This group has been in the vanguard of contemporary performance for some time. Featured composers are Simon Bainbridge, Philip Cashian, John Casken, Gabriel Jackson, Elizabeth Lutyens -- from whose piece the CD takes its title -- , Colin Matthews, Stephen Oliver, Timothy Salter, Howard Skempton and Douglas Young and from the publicity flyer these are première recordings.

Tonal music rubs shoulders with atonal and harmonic textures vary from rich to spare. Every work has interest although some composers are more comfortable in writing for this medium than others.

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