Navona’s Voices of Earth and Air, Vol. III presents contemporary choral music at a strikingly lyrical and accessible point of renewal. Across works that draw on poetry, prayer, philosophy, immigration, spiritual reflection, and human struggle, the album suggests a broad tonal shift in 21st-century choral writing: music that embraces clarity, beauty, and emotional directness without retreating from contemporary expression.

Garth Baxter’s Still Falls the Rain provides a powerful culmination to the collection. Based on Edith Sitwell’s celebrated poem, written in response to the suffering of the Second World War, the work reflects Baxter’s gift for text setting: shaping musical line, harmony, and choral color around the emotional and spiritual force of the words. The result is both lyrical and urgent, a plea to God in a time of strife that also carries a message of hope. As the closing work on the album, Still Falls the Rain gives the recording a resonant final statement. Baxter’s contribution reinforces the album’s larger artistic impact, showing how contemporary choral music can remain formally crafted, tonal, and deeply expressive while speaking directly to enduring human questions.