Lydia Kakabadse: Kefi: Chamber & Choral Work

British-born composer of multi-cultural parentage, Lydia Kakabadse writes in an instantly appealing style, drawing on both Greek and Russian Orthodox traditions as well as folk music from the Hellenic and Middle Eastern regions.  This extremely enjoyable disc of chamber and vocal music is most welcome and ought to make many new friends for her music.  The most substantial composition, featuring the Choir of Royal Holloway under their director Rupert Gough, with members of the Rossetti Ensemble, is Thirty Steps.  Composed to mark the 30^th anniversary of the Hellenic Institute, it is in the composer’s own words ‘a musical journey of spiritual growth’, using a text derived from the Ladder of Divine Ascent written by St John Climacus of Sinai (c 579-649 CE).  Kakabadse’s setting reaches to the heart of this spiritual meditation, which Gough and his forces match in a skilful and vey beautiful reading.  The chamber pieces are equally captivating, several of them foregrounding the Greek bouzouki.  The Feast of Herod imagines a latter-day Salome-style dance at a banquet, while the Nomadic Dances and Kefi rejoice in folk traditions, all superbly executed.

 Philip Reed (Choir and Organ – November 2024)