BBC Radio 3: on 2 December The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, gave the premiere of Cecilia McDowall’s Advent commission, A Prayer to St John the Baptist, conductor Andrew Nethsingha, Glen Dempsey organ. OUP published the anthem April 2019. ‘Written for the 2018 BBC Advent broadcast sung by the choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, A Prayer to St John the Baptist sets an artfully crafted text that combines Guido d’Arezzo’s Ut queant laxis (itself a Hymn to John the Baptist, as well as a medieval music-teaching mnemonic) with Thomas Merton’s poem on the same subject. The organ’s flowing quavers represent Merton’s baptismal ‘rivers of water’, while the largely octatonic melodies conjure a tellingly mysterious atmosphere.’
OUP website: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-prayer-to-st-john-the-baptist-9780193527836