There has not previously been a release devoted to Dani Howard (b1993). Fluent across the broad range of genres (witness the arresting vocal octet Unbound, recorded on The Marian Consort’s 2023 album ‘A Winged Woman’ – Linn), the orchestra has dominated her recent output and a representative selection of this work is featured here.

Most substantial is a Trombone Concerto (2021) written for Peter Moore, the three movements of which afford a refreshing take on the formal archetype. The simmering expectancy of ‘Realisation’ is followed by the subdued and not a little eloquent soliloquy of ‘Rumination’, before ‘Illumination’ draws together salient musical motifs in its rapid crescendo of activity towards an affirmative close. Moore renders the whole piece with his expected virtuosity and finesse, and it undoubtedly makes for a worthwhile addition to this still-limited repertoire.

The remaining four items duly confirm that Howard is already a master of the curtain-raiser. Earliest is Arches (2016), marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with some elegant woodwind exchanges and bewitching sonorities. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Classic FM, Argentum (2017) puts its musicians expertly through their post-minimalist paces, while Coalescence (2019) was again written for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and offers a relatively discursive but not unaffecting take on the ever more contentious issue of ‘humans versus nature’. Ellipsis (2021) commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Royal Philharmonic by alluding to notable pieces and personages from that orchestra’s history, unfolding with a deftness as evident from its fanfare-like opening as in the fervent apotheosis at its conclusion.

Recordings are as precise and committed as expected from conductors Pablo Urbina and Michael Seal, the spacious acoustics of Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall doing full justice to the composer’s alternately luminous and effervescent sound world.