Illumine Records is devoted to contemporary classical music. The label focuses on beautifully crafted recordings that invite immersive listening and lasting connection. From intimate solo works to expansive orchestral recordings, Illumine Records is committed to creating music that inspires reflection and quiet contemplation.
“As I sat watching in awe as the sun slowly descended over the ocean, I imagined what this profound experience might sound like translated into music.”
Jane Antonia Cornish
Written for layered strings, clarinets, and solo cello, the title track Lumina unfolds in shimmering waves of sound, gradually building into an expansive, luminous soundscape. The music reflects the overwhelming beauty of the gradual descent of the sun as it melts into the ocean’s horizon.
As Lumina dissolves into silence, overlapping layers of solo saxophone emerge in Flow I, their resonant lines drifting outward and fading into infinity, inviting the listener into a deeply meditative state.
From this ambient stillness, Solaris arises for solo violin, strings, and piano, a radiant and introspective meditation on light, warmth, and quiet transformation. The journey continues with Aeon, where solo saxophone traces slow, ascending figures that echo into the distance, dissolving time and space.
As the final tone of Aeon fades, Arcadia for solo cello and strings carries the listener further inward, contemplating unity with nature and the vastness of the universe. Chroma, for solo violin, mirrors this ascent through gently rising phrases, their reflective silences drawing the listener into a state of quiet contemplation.
Layered saxophones return in Flow II, now joined by a solo vocal line. Repeating and suspended, it forms a mantra-like gesture, creating an intimate and introspective sound world.
The album completes its arc as Lumina returns in its final form, this time opening with the solo cello. Echoing the cyclical nature of life and light, the music mirrors the eternal rhythm of the sun’s descent over the ocean, ending as it began, with violins slowly dissolving into a mesmerizing silence.
LUMINA OUT NOW
JANE ANTONIA CORNISH
COMPOSER, LUMINA
Time, silence, light, reflection and transcendence: exploring these themes, Jane Antonia Cornish’s seven studio albums have been met with wide acclaim, and have been called “a font of wistfulness and melancholic beauty” by WQXR, “beautiful” by BBC Radio 3, “patient, virtuosic, and mesmerizing” by Tom Schnabel, KCRW and "a virtual blessing in a world gone mad” by ICON Magazine.
The first woman in history to win a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for music, Jane Antonia has also scored many films, including “Fireflies in the Garden” starring Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds and Willem Dafoe and Jim Henson’s Five Children & It. She was named one of the UK Film Council's "Breakthrough Brits in Hollywood", was nominated for a Robert Award for her score to Zentropa’s “Island of Lost Souls” and also for “Breakthrough Composer of the Year” award by the International Film Music Critics Association.
Jane Antonia’s work spans the concert hall, film, ballet and the art world. She collaborated with New York City Ballet principal Ask la Cour on the title track from her album Into Silence. The pas de deux was performed as part of the Stars of American Ballet tour and a film of the ballet was released with the album. Her music was a part of a new work by choreographer Joseph Sturdy, Sonatra which was commissioned and performed by The Royal Swedish Ballet. The Norwegian National Ballet commissioned and performed a new work by Lucien Alan Øyen, Inquiet which also featured music by Jane Antonia.
Sierra, released by Cantaloupe Music, was written for four and six pianos, all performed by Bang on a Can All-Star Vicky Chow. Described as “Translucent…music inspired by the stillness Cornish feels when she is connected to nature” (BBC Radio 3), an album of “cosmic marvels” (The Guardian), “poetic meditations that quietly dazzle the senses and engage the intellect” (Textura Magazine) and “…an entrancing experience” (The Whole Note Magazine), Sierra has been met with critical acclaim.
The genesis of the album, Last Light, the only piece on Sierra written for one piano, was depicted in Noah Buchanan’s 2020 painting, Symphony — a brilliant celebration of individuality and diversity through the lens of art as a metaphor for the human condition. Jane Antonia has also collaborated with sculptor Phyllis Green on her clay installation with video Sylvia on Mars which was featured in her 25 year retrospective Splendid Entities.
Continuum, her second studio album, was performed by Decoda, the first ever Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. Continuum was named WQXR Q2 Music's Album of the Week. The release followed Cornish’s album Duende, described by the American Record Guide as “a program of bold, thoughtful, mesmerizing chamber music.”
Jane Antonia’s orchestral tone poem, “Symphony” was awarded a Special Distinction from ASCAP’s Rudolph Nissim Prize.
Jane Antonia Cornish studied composition at The Royal Northern College of Music with Anthony Gilbert, where she was awarded the RNCM Composition Prize and was made a Major Scholar. She went on to complete her postgraduate degree at the Royal College of Music, London.