Roxanna Panufnik Composer
Roxanna Panufnik is one of the most versatile and beloved British composers working today. Her works for opera, ballet, choirs, orchestras and chamber music and music for film and television are performed all over the world. Thanks to her hybrid heritage, she has a great love of music from a variety of cultures and different faiths. She was awarded an OBE for her services to music and charity in the King’s 2026 Birthday Honours.
Podium Music represents Roxanna Panufnik for choral commissioning and choral projects.
Roxanna Panufnik is one of the most versatile and beloved British composers working today. She studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and her works for opera, ballet, choirs, orchestras and chamber music and music for film and television are performed all over the world.
Roxanna has a great love of world music – her Four World Seasons for violinist Tasmin Little was picked by BBC Radio 3 to launch their Music Nations weekend, celebrating the London Olympics; her multi-faith Warner Classics CDs Love Abide and Dance of Life: Tallinn Mass for Tallinn Philharmonic, commissioned to celebrate Tallinn’s reign as European Capital of Culture.
She is especially interested in building musical bridges between faiths; the violin concerto Abraham, commissioned for Daniel Hope, incorporates 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 overture Three Paths to Peace commissioned by the World Orchestra for Peace and premiered in Jerusalem and London under the baton of Valery Gergiev, in 2008 and at the 2014 BBC Proms. The BBC Last Night of the Proms in 2018 commissioned and premiered Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light which brought together Jewish text, modes, Maronite Syriac chant and Sufi rhythm and structure.
Roxanna’s 50th Birthday year saw the oratorio Faithful Journey – a Mass for Poland for CBSO and National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Poland, which marked Poland’s centenary as an independent state. Recent commissions include Across the Line of Dreams for two conductors, two choirs and symphony orchestra premiered by Marin Alsop and Valentina Peleggi with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Ever Us commissioned by the Rundfunkchor Berlin, for 10 choirs and symphony orchestra, to premiere in 2024/25. Her operas, Silver Birch and Dalia commissioned by Garsington Opera received audience and critical acclaim.
2023 saw the premiere of the reworking of her father Andrzej Panufnik’s Five Polish Folk Songs for the CBSO and conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the Ravinia Festival. She was commissioned by King Charles III to write Coronation Sanctus for his Coronation in 2023, an orchestration of this was commissioned by Washington Choral Arts premiered at the Last Night of the Proms with Marin Alsop and the BBC Singers. Other recent premieres have included a BBC Proms and VOCES8 co-commission Floral Tribute (in memory of the late Queen Elizabeth II).
An ardent fan and passionate partaker of the UK’s unique liturgical choral scene, Roxanna is a patron of the Diamond Fund for Choristers.
She has won numerous awards and accolades, including a coronation medal for her “Coronation Sanctus” commissioned by King Charles III, in 2023. She has also received Poland’s Gloria Artis Medal, in 2021, the 2024 Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collection and she has just been awarded an OBE, for her services to music and charity, in the King’s 2026 Birthday Honours.
Roxanna is Associate composer with the London Mozart Players.
Roxanna’s compositions are published by Edition Peters and recorded on many labels including Warner Classics, Signum, Chandos, and EMI Classics.
Podium Music represents Roxanna Panufnik for choral commissioning and choral projects. Enquiries for anything other than choral should go to Katie Tearle at publisher Edition Peters, katie.tearle@editionpeters.com.
“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