With five concise vignettes that travel from childhood reverie to hard-won resilience, Moments of Freedom introduces Joanna Borrett as a songwriter of focus and feeling. Due 29 September 2025, the cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano is a confident first statement from a self-taught composer better known until now as an acclaimed cellist—and it lands with clarity.
Recorded at the Royal College of Music, the album benefits from a taut, well-judged partnership: mezzo-soprano Angelina Dorlin-Barlow sings with poised warmth and firm diction, while pianist Firoze Madon—formerly a BBC Young Musician of the Year finalist—shapes the keyboard lines with alert, singer-aware phrasing. Their collaboration has the hallmarks of careful preparation and shared purpose, which suits Borrett’s melody-forward writing.
Borrett’s chosen texts map a clean narrative arc. In Daydreaming (A.A. Milne) opens the set with childlike buoyancy; The Horse Gallops By (Ballad Belle) channels momentum without bluster; A Little While (D.G. Rossetti) turns inward, tender and unforced in its parting; Unconquered (W.E. Henley) carries its declaration with measured steel rather than theatrics; and Sudden Light (D.G. Rossetti) closes on a gentle shimmer of déjà vu. The sequence feels balanced, the transitions natural—each song distinct in character but clearly part of a whole.
What impresses most is Borrett’s economy. Her vocal lines invite legato and line, never over-writing the text; the piano writing supports, comments, and occasionally surges ahead, but always returns to the voice. It’s a pragmatic musical language that prioritizes communicative impact over ornament, and it suits these poems.
The backstory adds resonance without needing to carry the music. After a two-decade pause from professional performance, Borrett taught herself to improvise, arrange, and compose; she is now published by Kevin Mayhew Publishers, has been heard on BBC Radio 3 and Magic Classical, featured by Gramophone as Video of the Day, and has had string works performed by the Duchess of Edinburgh’s orchestra at Holyrood Palace. Three of her pieces are on the Trinity exam syllabus—credentials that speak to craft and accessibility in equal measure. “It’s exhilarating—and a little surreal—to be starting a new career in my sixties,” she notes. “This project is proof that it’s never too late to follow your passion.”
RCM’s role is not incidental. Head of Vocal Studies Nick Sears emphasizes the conservatoire’s commitment to living composers, and the performers’ engagement here backs that up; the result feels like a genuine meeting of generations and energies rather than a box-ticking exercise.
An assured, unpretentious debut, Moments of Freedom makes its case through song-by-song integrity and a persuasive duo performance. It suggests a composer who writes for the voice with empathy—and who has more to say.
