Birthday Madrigals was written at the invitation of Brian Kay, conductor of the Cheltenham Bach Choir, to celebrate the seventy-fifth birthday of the great jazz pianist George Shearing. The first performance was given, in his presence, in Cheltenham Town Hall on June 3, 1995 by the Cheltenham Bach Choir with Neil Swainson (double bass), John Rutter conducting. The seed of the composition was 'It was a lover and his lass,' witten in 1975. The other four movements, their texts also drawn from the madrigal era (hence the work's title), were added in 1995 to make the present choral suite.