Sansara, United Strings of Europe

Platoon PLAT24493 ★★★★★

Newly into its second decade, Tom Herring’s Sansara continues to redefine what choral music can say and do. Backed by United Strings of Europe, In the Midst is a thoughtful, moving meditation on sanctuary in a world increasingly in need of safety and security. Caroline Shaw’s cantata To the Hands is delivered with consummate feeling for meaning and mood, Lebanese Houtaf Khoury’s The Journey for violin and string ensemble, achingly beautiful. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s reflection on the plight of refugees, Fólk fær adlit, is affecting in Peter Stanley Martin’s arrangement for choir and string drone, Piers Connor Kennedy’s delicate, deft arrangement of Shaw’s and the swallow seeming to metamorphose Sansara into two choirs. There’s much unavoidable pain here, but the promise of succour and balm too.