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Shared Ground (music: Alec Roth; words: Vikram Seth et al.). CD recording: Ex Cathedra, cond. Jeffrey Skidmore

‘Shared Ground’ is a double CD album resulting from a five-year (2007–13 and ongoing) collaboration between conductor Skidmore, his internationally acclaimed choir Ex Cathedra, and the composer Alec Roth; the title work _Shared Ground_, for 12-part unaccompanied double choir, is itself a further collaboration between Roth and the multi-award-winning Indian novelist and poet Vikram Seth. Skidmore deploys many decades of professional choral conducting experience to achieve a permanent, publicly disseminated record of, and bring life and creative insights into, new and specially commissioned music of especial subtlety, expressive power and vocal empathy, operating over a wide range of skill from virtuoso professional (_Shared Ground_) to children’s voices (_Hymn to Gaia_). The handling of unusual languages, which has been a particular strength and interest of Skidmore (cf. Skidmore_02), here extends to Ancient Greek (_Hymn to Gaia_). This double CD includes, besides the title work: (1) _Earthrise_, for 40-part unaccompanied choir, commissioned by Skidmore and Ex Cathedra in 2009 for their 40th anniversary, premiered in Birmingham Town Hall on 31 January 2010 and performed thereafter at Salisbury Cathedral, Symphony Hall Birmingham, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; (2) _Hymn to Gaia_, again commissioned by Skidmore and Ex Cathedra, premiered in Birmingham Town Hall on 20 November 2011, and further performed in 2012 as part of the Cultural Olympiad; (3) _Sol justitiae_; (4) _Ponticelli_ for solo violin, designed for optional interspersed performance with _Shared Ground_; and (5) _The Flower_, setting poetical stanzas by George Herbert. _Shared Ground_ and_Ponticelli_ were commissioned jointly by the Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield Festivals with funding from Arts Council England and PRS for Music Foundation.