"... her music owes nothing to modish fads. Again and again she has the courage of simple integrity, interweaving her very direct emotionality with elegant harmonies."
Wiener Zeitung(Vienna)

"... a gifted young composer with a fast-growing reputation for heart, spunk and individuality ...distinctive in voice, serious, bold and appealing."
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

"Roxanna Panufnik is one of the finest contemporary vocal composers around. No matter how demanding the subject matter, she always seems to find a way to set words that sit hand-in-glove with the text... (re: If I Don't Know, Wendy Cope song-cycle) ...such is Panufnik's blinding musical wit and imagination that she negotiates each setting with a magician's sleight of hand... ...an uplifting setting of Tennyson's I dream'd, which moves compellingly from utter desolation to an exultant final section via a sumptuously rich harmonic palette."
Julian Haylock, International Record Review

"Panufnik's setting has an emotional gutsiness and an anguished, bitonal harmonic language that combines with the energy of the ancient chant to pack a hefty punch."         Jessica Duchen, Standpoint

“... This tiny piece, receiving its premiere here, burgeoned with joyous exhilaration, Little's solo line trilling and dancing, and interacting zippily with various soloists from Curtis' orchestra.”
Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

"Complementing Vivaldi's Venetian hinterland Four Seasons, which (Tasmin) Little directed from the violin in the second half, Panufnik's cycle takes its inspiration from far and wide, and here the drones and microtonal slides of subcontinental music are much in evidence, summoning a sense of sultry heat. Little's violin soared free of the dense textures and insect-activity, and we ended on a long-drawnout resolution of satisfying finality."

Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

“This evocative piece used Tibetan song as its inspiration, and Tasmin Little coaxed a huge variety of vocal qualities and colours from her solo line as the gentle declamation of the initial material became increasingly ornamented, phrase endings echoed by the string ensemble. As the violin line became less song-like glacial orchestral harmonics formed a chill background until the warmer sounds of cellos and basses brought the piece to an end.”
John Gough, Birmingham Post

“With its unfamiliar tonal scales, bursts of tremolo and sudden stops it had a distinctly otherworldly feel. As the violin melody became more pronounced, the upper strings provided an eerie accompaniment using harmonics. It was as if the music was gliding over the frozen wastes of a distinctly chilly Tibet.”
Roger Jones, MusicWeb International

“... like a frozen Lark Ascending.”
Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

“This magical moment feels like an unexpected break in the clouds, a vision of God’s dazzling rays shining through, and has great dramatic impact. The voices float upwards, the trebles harmonising in gentle thirds before the toiling brasses resume. These glimpses of eternity happen twice more before the work closes on a final peaceful resolution. ...a valuable addition to the canon of accessible choral settings of the Eucharist. It is sure to find its way into the repertoire of parish choirs...” 

Rick Jones, The Tablet

"One might well ask whether there is a need for another recording of Westminster Mass but listening to this disc will make it clear that it was a very good idea. ...a very fine Kyrie cum Jublio for organ, performed by Lee Ward, which makes one long to hear what else the composer might do for the instrument. ..."Sleep little Jesus"  abounds in impressive choral effects aimed at suggesting "a psychedelic effect of angels looking down from heaven upon the sleeping Jesus" that certainly distances it from more conventional Christmas fare. Impressive indeed."  Ivan Moody, Gramophone

"Panufnik's sacred writing is enhanced by her deeply spiritual thought processes and a refreshingly unusual approach to the text."        

Shirley Ratcliffe, Choir & Organ

"The Westminster Mass, which (...) exists in versions for organ and for orchestra, but the present version, for organ, bells, and harp along with the choir, is especially fortunate; the mass is structured, both in obvious ways and in subtler ones, around church-bell patterns, and the harp brings these out beautifully. It's an especially effective presentation of Panufnik's style, which can be quite dissonant but relies on the expansion of basic materials in a way that's easily accessible. The version of the Ave Maria heard here is also new, and in fact was made expressly for this recording. This is another high point, showcasing Panufnik's distinctive and often personal readings of familiar texts; in place of the familiar Schubertian mood here, she offers a setting that's both mystical and occasionally explosive. ...A top-notch job all around."

James Manheim, www.dilletantemusic.com

"Panufnik deliberately avoids the trite, choosing instead to employ dissonance that is still serene. The music fills the space and embraces extraneous sound; while I was listening, the local church bells, the howling wind, my wife’s computer antiphonal sounds, as well as dogs barking outside, were absorbed by the music. This democracy of sound retains the sacred mood but employs a contrasting subtext of chromatic harmony.  Also represented here are some excellent songs and excerpts, including a lovely Sleep Little Jesus , a unique Ave Maria , and a rousing Jesus Christ Is Born Today . The sound quality is enhanced by the natural acoustics of the Hampstead Parish Church. David Wolman, www.fanfaremag.com
 

"Ms Panufnik combines Slavic 2 and 3 rhythms to form a cleverly built architecture of sound."
ukö - Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 9 March 2009

"The quartet appeared to be enjoying the parody as much as the listeners it was about, and breaking down the mental barriers and conventions of a classical concert, it was a riotously funny and insightful piece."                Rob Garratt, Norwich Evening News

"...bears rich textural contrasts, spiky humour and a real sense of fun across its five-minute course. The finely chiselled music catches the flavour of Wendy Cope's verse, by turns edgy (as in 'the homeless hammer'), whimsical ('solitary beer-mat') and light of heart. Panufnik brilliantly combines the spirit of a playground song with the tarnishing air of adult urban neuroses in 'Some Rules' to warn against answering e-mails 'when you're drunk'! Panufnik's Two Poems is ideal matter for pitch-secure singers who delight in the music of words."

Andrew Stewart, Choir & Organ

"A diptych commissioned this year from Roxanna Panufnik humorously takes the sensationalised banality of two poems by Wendy Cope to an almost surrealist plane."

Andrew Johnstone, Irish Times

“.. The finest songs, as always, were those in which music respects words, and sound and are inextricable. Elias’s contribution ranks among their number, as does Roxanna Panufnik’s majestic Wordsworth setting That Mighty Heart,... “ Tim Ashley, The Guardian

“Other, subtler, composers moved and charmed us by not forgetting the old-fashioned virtues: lyrical vocal lines; form and function unified; a willingness not to show off. (other composers listed) Roxanna Panufnik all shaped memorable and useful songs that treated their texts and the audience with respect.” Geoff Brown, The Times

"...both works revealed a remarkable ear for instrumental and choral scoring, ranging from the ultra-economical to the most lush. (...) The new piece is marked "languorously" and aptly matched the season. It certainly warmed the hearts of an appreciative audience on a cold eve of British Summer Time."
Derek Beck, Hampshire Chronicle

“... ethereal and beseeching...”
Geoffrey Norris, The Telegraph

"Panufnik's (setting of Stay with Me) is more sensuous and opulently textured... Panufnik's Prayer proves another attractive find."
Andrew Achenbach, GRAMAPHONE Magazine

"From its dramatic cri de coeur opening, Panufnik’s version, for double choir and organ, was an almost feverish outpouring. Lingering chords in the cathedral’s acoustic accentuated the sense of mystery, and an almost pained chromaticism assisted in plumbing the depths of anguish and fear. (...) Panufnik almost ended with a major choir; but this resolution might have suggested too much certainty after the preceding turmoil, and the work concluded on a question mark."
Maggie Hamilton, CHOIR & ORGAN

“... grandly transcendental ... that floated in blocked discords with delayed resolution, clouding the sonorities like aural incense.”
Michael White, The Catholic Herald

“It is exquisite in its subtle and evocative word setting, allowing voice, piano and horn opportunity to explore the emotional depth and subtleties of the sonnet. The result is a hauntingly beautiful new song demonstrating Panufnik’s mastery of vocal and instrumental writing.”
Kenneth Richardson, Festival Director, 2008 Temple Festival

“... It was for me a rarity to be listening to completely current modern classical music, and I have to say I was slightly surprised by how much I managed to enjoy it when forced to listen properly. Dissonant and almost astructural, certainly, but also so wonderfully rich and with such wonderfully disturbing emotional currents and quite simply very beautiful in parts.”
Tzozen Blog

“... Solo violin phrases echoed by other instruments, until the echoes coalesced into a luscious accompaniment.”
Richard Morrison, The Times

"Sublime."
John Clare, Music Programmer/Host, WITF-FM 89.5

“Compare that (Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang) with Roxanna Panufnik's excellent Love Abide (commissioned by Choral Arts and premiered Saturday): While Mendelssohn reached new levels of homogeneity in Lobgesang, the British Panufnik shaded her music with sensual Turkish inflections. There was also uncompromising subtlety. The emptiness of life without love conveyed with a single, lonely harp note. There's pain in this music when the text confronts giving up the low road for the high - a decision the sheltered Mendelssohn perhaps never needed to make.”
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Panufnik here proffered a score of great and imaginative beauty (…) the piece made a powerful impression on the audience of nearly 700 (…)

Panufnik is a master, herself, at combining a central core of major/minor tonality with touches of medieval modality as well as Middle Eastern and quasi-Oriental colors and rhythms to produce a vocal and instrumental texture of surpassing transparency and agile strength. The text was not so much set to music as enhanced by it. Suzanne DuPlantis sang the all-important mezzo solo with elegant projection and emotional conviction, and Glandorf elicited sensitive yet secure singing from the choir, offering a substantive societal background against which individual love blossomed.”
Michael Caruso, Chestnut Hill LOCAL

"… The Crocodile and the Monkey, a setting by the brightly talented Roxanna Panufnik of an Indian folk tale recounted in poetry by Vikram Seth.”

“Panufnik’s illustrative flourishes captured the ear through … Lunge, grab, snap, drowning, slaughter: such words always pricked an imaginative response.”
The Times, 12 July 2002

"...Panufnik calls upon one ravishing, ear-tweaking sonority after another, often with a sensuality that is hauntingly Ravelian at times, enlivened by a propulsiveness and vocal directness that is no less reminiscent of early Boulez. ...and yet at all times Panufnik retains her own unmistakeable identity, encompassing a vast variety of moods from the lugubriousness of the tortoise to a stunning evocation of frog-calls... Bearing in mind that these exuberantly brilliant scores... the resounding success of this recording should hardly come as any surprise. The recording captures the palpable sense of occasion with just the right degree of warmth and ambient detail."
Julian Haylock, International Record Review

"Panufnik cleverly conjures up a different sound-world for each story... based on the characteristics of the animals involved... her vocal settings of the verse are highly responsive to the wit of the words... Conductor Sian Edwards draws ripe performances from all concerned, with the full range of Panufnik's imagination exploited by the CLS (City of London Sinfonia) players...a delight for children of all ages."
Matthew Rye, The Telegraph

"Panufnik's music equals the imagination and style of (Vikram) Seth's words, catching the humour and characterisation in her impressive orchestration, not to mention the subtle turns of phrase and quick changes of mood. (...) This work is thoroughly entertaining, musically satisfying and a lot of fun."
Manus Carey, MUSICAL OPINION

"In the Ave Regina Coelorum (Hail Queen of Heaven) Panufnik creates impressive swirls of tonal colour, smudging the borders between notes with half tones and overtones which are underpinned by a restless dissonance. It was an inspired touch to overlay the last stanza with words from the 11th-century poet Hermann the Lame pleading to the Virgin for mercy. Panufnik's dynamic setting of Psalm 96 O Sing to the Lord in the middle section was quite thrilling and paved the way for the concluding Te Lucis Ante Terminum (Before the End of the Day), which exuded warmth and optimism."
Susan Nickells, The Scotsman

"Roxanna Panufnik's brilliantly crafted score for wind ensemble complements Stilgoe's skills as narrator. The music is shot through with wit and no little drama, lifting it way above the level of underscoring to reach high in the direction of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale or Poulenc's Babar the Elephant."
Album of the Week, Music Week, 5 July 2003

"…what a superb composer for choir she is. (…) More than her deft handling of choral forces, it is Panufnik's instinctive feel for those words which stands out here. (…) while there is some delicious word-painting (…) her real skill lies in an unerring ability to find, in musical language, the essence of the texts. I don't think I will be alone after hearing this disc in begging for more of Roxanna Panufnik in the catalogue."
Marc Rochester, Gramophone (Editor's Choice)

"…she selects superb words but also sets them with sensitivity, imagination and skill. The Westminster Mass has an exultant joy which looks destined to make it one of the most popular settings of the liturgy of our time."
Robert Beale, Manchester Online

"Panufnik's choral writing is full, uplifting, extremely beautiful and in turn tender and joyful."
Antonia Couling, The Singer

"The music resonates in one's head long after the disc has stopped revolving. A hugely impressive achievement, crowning a disc that proclaims a composer of very evident talent".
Ivan Moody, International Record Review

"Panufnik's harmonic palette includes gorgeous bluesiness and moments of real surprise."
Meurig Bowen, BBC Music Magazine

"Panufnik's concerto is substantial and ear-catching... Like much of the composer's music, the 17-minute concerto's virtues are modesty, craft and understated elegance."
Financial Times

"Powers and Dominions (...) described by the composer as a 'concertino'. But it says more than many grander works. (...) Panufnik's individual voice comes through from the start as her thematic ideas take shape, but it is only as the work is lulled hypnotically towards its close that all the themes fall perfectly into place; the music is never obvious but instantly likeable."
John Allison, The Times, 6 November 2001

"... a ravishingly lucid creation (...) the effect was like an aural tapestry of constantly shifting colours and textures, occasionally punctuated by moments of dramatic intensity and great beauty - quite magical."
David Hart, Birmingham Post, 7 November 2001

"Roxanna Panufnik pushes one instrument to its limits in her new concertino for harp, one of her strongest achievements yet (...) Panufnik exploits both the familiar, ravishing flourishes and the strange, percussive side not normally heard (...) These were only the more arresting features of an intricate musical landscape in which a second harp played a ghostly, shadowing role, creating an aural radiance with the soloist and vibraphone. (...) Here's a piece for immediate assumption into the repertoire."
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer, 11 November 2001

"The ability to be witty and serious at the same time is both rare & admirable and forms the chief quality of If I don't Know, an engaging song-cycle by Roxanna Panufnik... a spirited and delightfully witty setting ... There are many imaginative, naturalistic touches reflecting the composer's experience in choral and vocal composition... "
Malcolm Miller, TEMPO Magazine

"The music mirrored the sentiments expressed in the poetry brilliantly. The dreamy By the Round Pond, was especially evocative."
Cheltenham Echo, 2004

"...her setting captured the blend of serious and witty sentiment... showing her inspired talent for dramatic gesture, often emphasising a word or phrase either in cabaret-style speech or a throwaway motif."
Musical Opinion

"May God richly reward her for what she has achieved, and we thank her for enhancing our prayer. She is helping us to pierce in some manner the cloud which separates us from Him, the Holy One to whom all glory and honour must be given."
Cardinal Basil Hume OBE, homily at the premiere 21st May 1998

"Some CDs give you interest, some pleasure, and a very few deliver both in such abundance it's worrying. This disc alarms me, it's so comprehensively attractive. Until now, the claim to fame of Roxanna Panufnik has largely been as the daughter of the composer Andrzej. But with her Mass setting - written for Cardinal Hume before his death - she emerges as a major figure in her own right… Fiercely recommended."
Michael White, The Independent on Sunday, 7 November 1999.

"At its premiere last year, Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass caused quite a stir; and its recording by Westminster Cathedral Choir under James O'Donnell shows why. The daughter of Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik has her own individual voice - tonal, expressive, keenly spiced with chromatic harmony, and finding room within a seven-movement English-language Mass setting for such haunting ideas as the harp's flowing accompaniment to the Gloria, while elsewhere strings and bells surround the voices like a halo.
Malcolm Hayes, Classic FM Magazine, October 1999.

"...a jewel... Panufnik's exquisite Mass setting - a relative model of clarity, and written from the heart - was the best music on offer in London... It was clear that the piece is an absolute entity, and as a musical composition stands on its own, coherent and convincing. And it is a beautiful composition, sensitively orchestrated... It's ethos is romantic but never over the top, sweet but unsentimental, and characterised by rich, gentle harmonies and a devotional, quietly fervent sense of atmosphere. It also has a number of melodic hooks that are instantly memorable. This, like the best of it's type, is a Mass that will travel and be taken up - for purely musical performance - by a range of choirs and chamber orchestras. It's ravishing."
Michael Tumelty, The Glasgow Herald, May 1999.

Roxanna Panufnik "is one of the country's most sought-after composers. Last year she was commissioned to write Westminster Mass to celebrate Cardinal Hume's 75th birthday… It's a moving tribute to a man who was genuinely loved by people of all faiths. Panufnik puts her study of the harp to good use and, with the superb singing of the Westminster Cathedral Choir, creates a truly heavenly sound."
Nick Bailey, Classic FM Magazine, November 1999.

"Conceived for liturgical use - though including an orchestra of strings, harps and bells - there are some effective and affecting passages, such as the beautiful chords which the choir sings at the start of the Gloria. There is warmth and expression."
Classic CD, December 1999.

"Bells accompany the opening of Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass and confer upon it an immediately distinctive identity… Most immediately attractive is the Sanctus: not the usual awe-struck worship but a happy gambolling of children before a throne decked for Christmas… On early and necessarily brief acquaintance it seems an intriguing compound in style and appeal; and the first impression is at least memorable."
Gramophone, November 1999.

"This is wonderful music: radiant, soaring, deeply felt... Roxanna Panufnik's command of choral texture is remarkably assured, and she avoids false rhetoric, preferring a calmly judicious approach to the demands of her liturgical text. In spite of the innumerable both good and bad precedents confronting her she has the assurance to make her own distinctive approach, especially in the Sanctus and Agnus Dei. This is a work which deserves international recognition and I look forward to hearing it again soon".
Geoffrey Crankshaw, Musical Opinion

"The Westminster Mass is extremely beautiful... here was something unarguably spiritual, something which forced you to take the entire proceedings seriously... passing dissonances resolve into consonant harmonies that break through like a shaft of light before they are resolved again... I would put a few bob on the Westminster Mass achieving a good deal of popularity in performance: it is well within the capacity of a good amateur choir and must be a most thoroughly enjoyable sing. Panufnik's publishers, Kalmus, could well have a hit on their hands."
Martin Anderson, Tempo

"Created by the Cathedral Choir in May 1998, the Westminster Mass of the young and beautiful Roxanna Panufnik - of which only the Deus, Deus meus has already been recorded (by the same artist, with Koch) - is a delicious surprise, a cathedral of contrasts embellished with subtly dissonant harmonies. The melodic lines are clear and very easy to read, the orchestration delicate, well thought out and original (with harps and bells). Here we have fresh, devilishly expressive music, music which never spurns the text, but paints it effectively. The famous Westminster Cathedral Choir trebles perform this work with talent, using their head voice with such inimitable resonance, and with strength..."
Diapaison, December 1999.

"Far and away the most enjoyable aspect of things was Panufnik's music - nearly always engaging and often quite beautiful. Musical references abounded - clearly West African kora and xylophone playing in scene one, jazz and blues in scene two, Mozart, Latin-American dance, and so on… There was some lovely writing for a cappella voices, and the ensemble, under Wojciech Michniewski brought out the composer's many pleasing sounds and textures with aplomb."
The Independent, 29 May 2000

"The young British composer Roxanna Panufnik's new operatic adaptation of Paul Micou's clever novel The Music Programme presented some lushly attractive washes of sound."
The Daily Telegraph, 5 June 2000

"The Music Programme is a work of warm-hearted humour and outrageous satire. The most exciting compositional trick Panufnik pulls is to represent the different characters by contrasting musical styles: Bach for the Bach-obsessed Dr Lord, Mozart for the demure but sensual pianist Eleanor, sprechstimme for the 'outsider' McCray, and so on… One might imagine that this technique would lead to aural chaos, but everything is clearly bound together by Panufnik's gloriously luminous harmony and some wonderfully inventive orchestration. Everything seems pared down to the essentials in this 75-minute work, demanding the audience's attention on a very detailed level and repaying it with wit and some rapturous moments."
BBC Music Magazine, June 2000

"This is a genuine, ambitious chamber opera, accessible to an averagely informed public, and revealing all its charm to a listener who is acquainted with the history of music and has listened widely. … broad seams of humour, interesting harmonic ideas and the rich musical imagination of the composer. And above all miraculous play is made with the conventions of the world of opera, with its simplifications and identically symbolic treatment of reality and sound."
Zycie (Polish national newspaper)

"Roxanna Panufnik knows how to write vocal music. She understands the potential of the human voice and takes care to expose it in an attractive way, which is something contemporary composers often neglect."
Rzeczpospolita (Polish national newspaper)

"It was (Nigel) Cliffe's great-uncle, killed near Ypres, who furnished Panufnik with the launch-pad for her new piece. Private Joe, a compact five-section song cycle, is framed by two touchingly humdrum letters home from a doomed British Tommy. His opening appeal is pounded home by Debussian ostinati and a strongly delineated, rather effectively shaped vocal line. Thicker clusterings, comic repetitions and drunken slurrings underline the erratic, scherzoid black humour of "And when I die". "The Letter" is a strikingly varied, poignant, nervy setting of less familiar Wilfred Owen.

With his tragically-wrought feminine endings ("smutted", "ragged") and ominous iterations ("solitary and black"), Cliffe constantly confirms the operatic aspect of the writing : kit him up, hollow his eyes and we would be in the genre of Maxwell Davies music theatre. The ending is tragic clown - part lyrical, part howling, obsessive and mad. A marked achievement, above all because Panufnik has the range, talent and imagination to skirt the threatened kitsch."
Roderick Dunnett, The Independent

"Add to the roster of goodies, Virtue which is a score of harmonic finesse and eloquence."
Christopher Grier, Evening Standard

"...A tenderly expressive song..."
Edward Greenfield, The Guardian

"...a very moving tribute ... very lovely piece ... hypnotic little changes of harmony ... an individual work."
On Air, BBC Radio 3

"...cheerfully extrovert, and scored with the craftmanship expected from the 25 year-old daughter of Andrzej".
Musical Opinion

"What is so impressive about Olivia is its composer's surefootedness in dealing with the quartet medium. Her intuitive grasp of large-scale form is fluent enough for composers twice her age (she is not yet 30) to be proud of... The writing here truly has the prerequisite dialogue of four equals of a real string quartet... Olivia is quite the finest composition of Roxanna Panufnik's that I have heard to date. It shows considerable technical resources in its 16 or so minutes and, expressively, catches perfectly the complex irony and double-edged attraction in Shakespeare's play."
Guy Rickards, Tempo

"...highly original and intensely emotional... a Shakespeare-inspired contemplation with narrative elements and a deeply romantic undertone (with integrated humming of the musicians and the final, aching cry on the viola particularly fine touches)..."
Michael Tumelty, The Glasgow Herald

"From the hushed sound of ethereal breezes to whistles and shimmering glissandos, this is an exciting composition worth many another hearing"
Marion Cox, Dorset Evening Echo

"haunting and atmospheric in its melancholy... an intriguing combination of illustration and commentary... a telling mixture of emotionally manipulated harmonies and communicative string devices, eloquently textured, it adds a resourcefully deployed childrens' chorus, running through a gamut of vocal techniques "
Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

"She (Roxanna) adds to the choir a harp, creating an opulent, even heady setting, the continual upward motion of the harp sounding like clouds of rising incense; it's a gorgeous piece, each stanza bestowed with Panufnik's trademark rich tonality."

www.5-against-4.blogspot.com

Arranged and orchestrated from the original 1787 harpsichord score by Dr. Samuel Arnold.

"a stirring experience... Inkle and Yarico is a gem to be exploited"
Anthony Thorncroft, Financial Times

"The melodies, by Samuel Arnold, were harmonised and orchestrated in an engagingly quirky manner by Roxanna Panufnik and the evening was brought to a thrilling conclusion by a splendid calypso employing every acrobat, juggler and fire-eater on the island"
Humphrey Burton, Classic Fm Magazine

"The young and talented composer, Roxanna Panufnik, had been ask to compose... music on a well-known chopsticks theme to poems by Ogden Nash, and on this performance alone she demonstrated a keen ear for the written (and spoken) text. Her music was highly amusing, teasingly chromatic and imaginative ..."
Tim Stein, Ham & High (Hampstead & Highgate Express)