Will Todd is a British composer (b. 1970) who specializes in choral music, although he has written in other genres also. His musical language is tonal and quite conservative, so if you are expecting a composer to break new ground or to greatly challenge the listener, you will be advised to look elsewhere. The disc takes its title, Lights, Stories, Noise, Dreams, Love and Noodles from the longest of its four works, a 25-minute cantata for mixed children’s and adult chorus, the result of a collaboration between Todd and Michael Rosen, a celebrated children’s author in the UK. The cantata is in eight movements, one for each subject named in the title plus a prologue and epilogue, both titled “City Rhythm.” With its fairly simple harmonic writing and dependence on melody, the work is approachable and immediate, making it suitable for accomplished amateurs as well as professional choristers. The most challenging aspect is rhythmic—the small instrumental ensemble plays jazzily, and the chorus must continually keep pace.Todd has adroitly assigned the more challenging chromatic passages to the adult singers, while the children are often responsible for the melody or two-part harmony. The music is by turns soulful and upbeat. The Prologue, which is set entirely for the children’s chorus, involves a synthesis between traditional scat singing in jazz tinged with rap. The engagingly playful text is a mix of previous poems that Rosen had already written and new ones that grew out of the collaboration with Todd. The third movement, “Noise,” is particularly witty in its onomatopoeic replication of sounds that children love to hear and imitate. The next movement, “Stories,” is a gently swinging tune that comes close to the idiom of a pop song. Throughout the intertwined adult and children’s voices are very skillful, and the technical accomplishment of the Finchley Children’s Music Group makes a strong impression—I’m sure they were thrilled to get a jazzy break from the meat-and-potatoes assignment of hymns and other religious music. The opening work, Songs of Magical Creatures, is set for chorus, piano, percussion, strings, and harp. The familiar texts are taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (“Full fathom five thy father lies”) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (“If we shadows have offended”), the two plays being replete with fairies and magic. “Fairy Song” from MND opens and closes the work. The settings are lovely and very traditional in their musical grammar. Todd has a genuine gift for creating melodies––they don’t merely seem tuneful in passing but actually stay in your ear afterward. He is also an effective orchestrator, using gentle percussion effects to create an atmosphere that’s appropriately magical. I Will Light a Candle is an a cappella choral work and the shortest piece on the program at four minutes. Todd says he was inspired to write it when he heard the University of Delaware Choir at Chorale Internationale 2017 (the composer wrote the text as well), and it is hauntingly beautiful. The music is perfect for the text: When the darkness is round me, When the night is so long, How can I hold on to you? When my dreams are fading away, Be at my side. I will light a candle, To hold on to you. Kites, Cards and Constellations was commissioned by the family of Mark Blanco, a British actor who died in 2006 falling from an apartment balcony during a party. No official determination has been made as to whether he was pushed or jumped. Blanco’s family, particularly his mother, has expended great efforts to bring about greater police effort on determining what actually happened. Todd’s score was commissioned for a 2016 commemoration of Mark’s life at Westminster Cathedral on the tenth anniversary of his death. The music is scored for mixed chorus and piano, and as befits the subject, it is the most austere of the works on this disc. There are hints of a very restrained and intimate kind of jazz in the piano part. All the performances are superb. The Bach Choir has a long and distinguished history, having been founded in 1876 and having given the first performance in Great Britain of Bach’s B-Minor Mass. The choir commissioned Lights, Stories, Noise, Dreams, Love and Noodles as part of a community engagement effort to draw in children and their families. When one speaks of the British choral tradition, one is referring to fine groups like this one. The various instrumentalists all perform admirably as well. In sum, this disc contains very approachable choral music that refrains from placing much demand on the listener but that nonetheless rewards close attention because of Todd’ skill and imagination. The booklet contains full texts and helpful program notes by the composer. The notes are brief, but the music doesn’t require more. Signum’s recorded sound is an ideal balance of clarity and ambiance.