Presto Music Classical Podcast, Episode 51: Nunconventional - The Poor Clares of Arundel on their second album for Decca

Another second-album episode! A follow-up not to a trailblazingly exploratory recording (as when we spoke to Heloïse Werner last episode) but to a quietly uplifting one, filled with spirituality and peace. 

The Poor Clares of Arundel appeared on many people's musical radar back in 2020, when their album Light For The World was released into the midst of uncertain and difficult times. Inspired by the daily life of the community of the Poor Clares, and mixing contemporary compositions with ancient plainchant, it was a huge hit - offering reassurance and comfort to listeners in a situation that could hardly have been imagined when the recording was made.

Earlier this year, the Poor Clares' second album was released - My Peace I Give You, drawing particularly on the Canticle of Creation written by St Francis of Assisi, the medieval saint whose lifestyle of deliberate poverty and rejection of worldly goods and activities was the direct inspiration for the formation of the order itself.

We talk to Sister Aelred and Sister Graca of the Poor Clares about the unlikely formation of a relationship between a cloistered convent and a major record label, the role of music in the daily life of their community, and how the releasing of commercial recordings fits in with their calling to a life of seclusion and prayer.

Image credit: Chris O'Donovan

The recordings mentioned in this episode...