Jonathan Dove is one of Britain’s most resourceful and versatile contemporary composers, whose affinity for vocal setting is especially striking. From the operatic canvas of his acclaimedFlight to his song cycles, his acutely perceptive approach to texts is unmistakable. Out of Winter, written in collaboration with Dove, is the late Sir Robert Tear’s poetic response to Thomas Hardy’s Winter Words. Cut My Shadow is a powerful and harrowing setting of three Lorca texts notable for a sense of constant unease and longing for a homeland. All You Who Sleep Tonight, to poems by Vikram Seth, is elegant, moving, and witty whilst Ariel explores Shakespeare’s elusive character from The Tempest in a rôle for unaccompanied soprano.