Philip Stopford is admired in Britain and America for his beautifully crafted music, rooted in the Anglican tradition. His works are memorable and colourful, as these world premiere recordings demonstrate. The biggest piece on this album is the Missa Deus nobiscum, a sacred concert work with a scintillating role for soprano soloist that displays Stopford’s compositional skill, creating a journey rather than a sequence of set piece movements. Elsewhere, in pieces for a variety of locations and occasions, his music is evocative, filmic and vividly celebratory.

‘In the last few years Philip Stopford has emerged from among the younger generation of British composers as one of the most popular and prolific writers of new choral music, and is in wide demand on both sides of the Atlantic. His beautifully-crafted music combines uplifting classic texts with memorable, radiant melodies, and glorious harmonies’, wrote Regent Records.

Stopford’s Ave Maria is represented on an album called Heaven full of stars on 8574179, which was an American Record Guide Critic’s Choice.

Soprano Grace Davidson also sings on an album of Francis Pott’s choral music on 8572739: ‘Grace Davidson here takes the palm for sheer beauty of voice’ (Musicweb International) with BBC Music Magazine praising ‘a pristine soprano contribution from Grace Davidson’.