Alec Roth - A Road Less Travelled (Various Artists)

Information

Composer: Alec Roth

• A Road Less Travelled
• The Garden Path
• Other Earths and Skies

Mark Padmore, tenor / Morgan Szymanski, guitar

Martha Mclorinan, mezzo-soprano / Sacconi Quartet

Hugo Hymas, tenor / Nicholas Daniel, oboe

Date: 2026

Label: Signum Classics

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This album presents three vocal works by the acclaimed contemporary composer Alec Roth, each setting poetry that reflects on nature and human experience. A Road Less Travelled is a cantata for tenor and guitar based on poems by Edward Thomas, written shortly before the poet’s death in 1917. The Garden Path, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and string quartet, sets garden-inspired poetry by Amy Lowell. Other Earths and Skies features settings of Vikram Seth’s translations of poems by Li Bai for tenor and oboe. The performers include Mark Padmore, Morgan Szymanski, Martha McLorinan, the Sacconi Quartet, Hugo Hymas, and Nicholas Daniel.

Alec Roth (born 1948) is a British composer whose music combines apparent simplicity with underlying depth, achieving a timeless yet contemporary character. Largely self-taught, his unconventional path included careers outside music before formal study at Durham University and a pivotal period studying gamelan in Java, which reshaped his musical outlook. Returning to the UK, Roth developed a successful composing career through education work and commissions, particularly in choral and vocal music. His works have been widely performed, broadcast, and recorded internationally, supported by long-term collaborations with performers and writers such as Ex Cathedra, Mark Padmore, Morgan Szymanski, and Vikram Seth.

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