Roxanna Panufnik (born 1968)
Roxanna Panufnik was born in London, the daughter of Polish conductor and composer Andrzej Panufnik. She became attracted to the violin when she was 3 years old and also studied piano and flute as a child. When she was 12, she was encouraged to begin writing down her improvisations by composer Oliver Knussen, and she cites that as the beginning of her career as a composer.
Roxanna Panufnik studied at the Royal Academy of Music but shied away from more modernist influences to forge her own path. Her compositions mix the modern and the traditional, with influences of world music. Consequently, her music can take surprising and unexpected turns. She writes a lot of choral music of various languages, and her music is often informed by a spiritual impulse.
The title of her 2008 orchestral composition Three Paths to Peace refers to the three Abrahamic religions:
She has said:
I’m on a mission to shout from the rooftops the beauty of all these different faiths’ music. It’s about bringing us together. Too often we don’t think about what we have in common, but instead about our tiny fraction of difference from each other.
I believe this next video is a rehearsal of Zen Love Song, one of the tracks on her album Love Abide, described as a celebration of multicultural spiritual devotion:
Roxanna Panufnik’s 2019 string quartet Heartfelt begins with toe tapping and strumming:
The description on the video states that the first movement suggests the court musicians of 17th century Uzbekistan. “I imagined a grand and regal caravan of camels and carriages, travelling down the Silk Road. The second movement is titled “Lament for a Bulgarian Dancing Bear.”