Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968)
Composer
Works published by MoV
Ubi Caritas (SS & piano)
Ubi Caritas (SS & piano)
Ubi Caritas was written for my daughters’ beloved head teacher, Sr Paula Thomas, as a surprise goodbye present. I sent the RE teacher on a secret mission to try and surreptitiously find out Sr Paula’s favourite plainsong and the answer came back as this Ubi Caritas. I set it for St Catherine’s School’s two-part choir who premièred it, with huge emotion, at the school Summer concert on 20th June, 2018. The first time we hear it, it is sung in Latin but then repeated with one stave in Latin and the other echoing in English.
The piece is dedicated, of course, to Sr Paula with love and grateful thanks for everything she has done for my girls and I am also indebted to the School Chaplain, Mary Ryan, and to the former Head of Music, Jasper Jacob, for their help in making it happen. (Roxanna Panufnik)
Ubi Caritas (SS & piano)
This work is published in our anthology Volume 2
To order the sheet music click on the buttons below.
Perusal score coming soon
(August 2025)
Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968)
Roxanna has a great love of world music – this has culminated in her Four World Seasons for violinist Tasmin Little, the world première of which was chosen by BBC Radio 3 to launch their Music Nations weekend, celebrating the London Olympics. Her Dance of Life: Tallinn Mass for Tallinn Philharmonic was commissioned to celebrate Tallinn’s year as European Capital of Culture.
She is especially interested in building musical bridges between faiths, and her first project in this field was the violin concerto Abraham, commissioned for Daniel Hope, incorporating Christian, Islamic and Jewish chant to create a musical analogy for the fact that these three faiths believe in the same one God. This work was subsequently converted into an overture for the World Orchestra for Peace and was premièred in Jerusalem and London under the baton of Valery Gergiev, in 2008, and performed at the 2014 BBC Proms. Her 2017 opera Silver Birch, commissioned by Garsington Opera, was met with great audience and critical acclaim.
2018, Roxanna’s 50th Birthday year, saw some exciting commissions and premières for the BBC Last Night of the Proms and a co-commissioned oratorio Faithful Journey – a Mass for Poland for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Poland, marking Poland’s centenary as an independent state. Roxanna is currently writing an epic work for the Rundfunk Chor Berlin plus nine other choirs from all over the world, to be premièred at the Berlin Philharmonie in May 2020.
Roxanna’s compositions are published by Peter’s Edition Ltd and are recorded on many labels including Warner Classics, Signum, Chandos, and EMI Classics. (Peters UK)