Métier Records Announces Second Album of Music by Liz Dilnot Johnson

Critics were lavish in their praise of ‘Intricate Web’ – an album of chamber music by Liz Dilnot Johnson (Métier MSV 77206, released May 2017): “An exciting album full of interesting music, musically vibrant, and ultimately satisfying.” (MusicWeb International); “Liz Johnson’s music really resonated with me. I can, therefore, do no less than give this issue my top recommendation.” (Fanfare).

The range of choral works on her new album spans the enormous output across the composer’s life, performed with great flair by Ex Cathedra directed by Jeffrey Skidmore. The second half of the album presents one of Johnson’s large-scale choral works, When A Child Is A Witness – Requiem for Refugees, winner of the Ivors Composer Award for community and participation (2022). Setting words from the traditional Requiem Mass, along with words from the English Prayer Book, these choral movements encompass a world of music from a simple call and response song to complex and emotionally driven music that takes the listener on an emotional journey, moving from darkness into light.

The first half of the album presents some of Johnson’s earliest works including O Vos with spirals of sopranos unfurling, defined by the Fibonacci Series, written as part of a collaboration with mathematician Prof. Ian Stewart. More recent pieces that have been commissioned and premiered by Ex Cathedra, with whom Liz is composer-in-residence, include Blake Reimagined, a lockdown work originally composed for remote choir (later released on Youtube)* with soloists including Carnatic singer Debipriya Sircar with Jazz and Soul singers Margaret Lingas and Gabriella Liandu. Four of Johnson’s carols include the playful eco-carol A Wild Midwinter Carol, the acerbic Magi (her earliest work), the eight-part advent motet Gentle Flame and the tender lullaby For This Babe. The Windhover, setting Gerard Manley Hopkins’ extraordinary poemis a tour de force, scored for baritone solo for the expressively powerful voice of Lawrence White with 10-part choir, summoning up the wild kestrel at dawn.

Award-winning British composer Liz Dilnot Johnson lives on the Malvern Hills in Herefordshire. Johnson’s richly diverse music includes danceworks, films, opera, vocal and orchestral works, delicately layered and complex chamber music and a wealth of luscious choral that is performed all over the world. Her debut album Intricate Web (2017) was met with wide critical acclaim: ‘magnificent’ (The Chronicle Review), ‘sometimes challenging, musically vibrant, and ultimately satisfying’. (MusicWebInternational).

When A Child Is A Witness – Requiem for Refugees won the Ivors Composer Award 2022 for Community and Participation involving over 100 performers including Ex Cathedra a children’s choir, professional soloists and refugee groups. ‘She has an extraordinary intuition for knowing what works’ (Jeffrey Skidmore, OBE). Johnson’s debut double album Intricate Web (2017) features the prize-winning Sky-burial performed by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet with vocalist Loré Lixenberg ‘a master-class in writing for voice and for string quartet’ (MusicWebInternational). The multiple award-winning music video Can You Hear Me? includes music from Johnson’s large-scale cantata I Stand At The Door for mezzo-soprano, baroque violin, choir and baroque orchestra with words by Greta Thunberg, Kurt Masur, the Book of Revelations, David Hart and the composer herself.

In 2024 there will be four CD releases of Johnson’s music: the full album of selected choral works performed by Ex Cathedra – the choir with which Liz is Composer-in-Residence; The Space Between Heaven and Earth for basset horn with piano commissioned and recorded by Ronald Woodley; Inflorescence for soprano saxophone with piano commissioned and recorded by Kyle Horch; and In The Mirror – a set of pieces for cello and piano commissioned and recorded by cellist Heather Tuach. New commissions include works for the English Viol Consort, for the York Late Music Festival and a fifth major quartet for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet (supported by the Vaughan Williams Foundation).