Cappella Nova - Tavener Conducts Tavener - Financial Times

The title is a bit of a catch. The conductor is not John Tavener, the composer who died in 2013, but his cousin Alan Tavener, founder of Cappella Nova.

Family ties mean this choir, with its distinctively sharp-edged sound, has many connections with John Tavener and gave the premiere of his three-hour Resurrection.

Choruses from that giant work bookend this disc together with other short Tavener pieces, several of them Cappella Nova commissions.

There are some welcome first recordings, including "A Buddhist Miniature" and "A Cradle Song", each gleaming with Tavener's simple sanctity.