Roxanna Panufnik

Sim Shalom

Having already had a wonderful collaboration with the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, I was very excited when their Director of Music, Cathy Heller Jones, approached me with a request to set this beautiful prayer for peace. Although the prayer is nearly 2,000 years old, its sentiments are needed now, more than ever.

I use the first two lines as a refrain, which has a strong Jewish modal feel about it. Starting low and in a minor harmony, it rises and becomes more major, with an entreaty for hope. Cathy and I share Polish roots, so she asked me to bring that into the musical mix. For the two ‘verses’, I have used a common Polish mode, in the right hand of the organ, which has a raised fourth and flattened seventh. 

The setting finishes with a passionate and optimistic C major chord, in ardent hope that our prayer is heard.

The piece is dedicated to the respective commissioners’ parents – to Rebecca Tennen and Seymour Roberts for Cathy Heller Jones, and to Geoff and Patricia Head for Sue Head.

I am hugely grateful to Cathy Heller Jones and Sue Head for this commission and to Senior Rabbi Alexandra Wright for very patiently recording the Hebrew text and supplying a word-for-word translation. 

Roxanna Panufnik, 30 April 2024