Nadia Boulanger:
Cantique

John Dankworth:
Light of the World

Wayne Marshall:
Magnificat
Nunc Dimittis

Felix Mendelssohn:
If With All Your Hearts
O For the Wings of a Dove (arr. Anna Lapwood)

Harry Thacker Burleigh:
O Perfect Love

Roxanna Panufnik:
Ubi Caritas

Eric Whitacre:
The Seal Lullaby

Lennox Berkeley:
O That I Once Past Changing Were

Lili Boulanger:
Pie Jesu

Richard Shephard:
Drop, Drop, Slow Tears

John Ireland:
Ex Ore Innocentium

Kristina Arakelyan:
You Know Me

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Ave Maria (arr. Charles Gounod)

Ben Ponniah:
Litany to the Holy Spirit

James Devor:
I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say

Ben Parry:
Magnificat (Ely Canticles)
Nunc Dimittis (Ely Canticles)

As with so many across the country and the world, in 2020 the Pembroke College Girls' Choir couldn’t meet in person for 6 months during the 1st lockdown, and for 4 months during the 2nd lockdown. When we could meet, all the singing we could do involved 2-metre distancing and copious quantities of hand sanitiser. There was a part of me that worried what the Girls' Choir would be like when we could finally meet again; whether they would remember the repertoire, whether they would have lost their vocal confidence, and, most worrying of all, whether they would have lost their sense of identity as a group.

If anything, I found the opposite to be true; when we could eventually return to singing regularly they were singing with a newfound sense of determination and commitment. I think so many of us found that the pandemic reminded us of what it is that is so important about singing together with other people, and I think this has come across in performances from choirs all over the country. With this album it was my hope that we could capture some of that determination, recording the music that got us through one of the hardest years in most of our lives.

Anna Lapwood (booklet notes)

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Recorded in the chapel of Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 8th, 9th and 11th July 2021.