Karl Jenkins

 

With several advertising campaigns, an OBE and, most recently, proof that he is the most performed living composer in the world, Dr Karl Jenkins has a lot to be proud of. On February 18 he will be joining singers from the International Schools Choral Music Society Festival on stage at the Forbidden City Concert Hall where his piece 'Qing Zhu' (Celebration) will have its grand debut. We spoke to Dr. Jenkins as he prepares for his trip to China’s capital about what he considers to be ‘inspiration’, his work and what he thinks about China.

 

 

Inspiration is a funny thing because I find as a composer that I have to keep writing is I’m working on a project. It’s a question of doing a little bit every day: if I wait for inspiration, it never comes. I do a little work each day and keep ideas that appeal to myself, and discard ideas that don’t. But actually, ‘inspiration’ is not a word that I ever acknowledge. I have two homes in the UK: one in London and one in Wales, which is quite idyllic countryside. Everyone thinks that I do most of my writing in Wales because the assumption is that environment is elusive to composition but as long as I have my tools of the trade (which are essentially a keyboard attaches to a music program to notate it), I can work anywhere.

 

In regard to influences, I was trained classically so I studied all the great composers from Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina to Renaissance then onto Bach. I get more influence, though, from the other side of me in the sense that when I was a teenager, I fell in love with jazz and became a jazz musician when I left the Royal Academy of Music. There’s lots of jazz influence in my music as well as ethnic influence. It’s a mixture, really, of the great classical composers and eminent jazz musicians like Miles Davis and a whole waft of ethnic music.

 

 

The aim of all composers is to have a ‘voice’ as they call it, which makes you sound like no one else. My ‘voice’, if you like, is a combination of classical but also influenced by other cultures. In terms of text, I always get influence from other cultures. In terms of world instrumentation, particularly percussion, there’s usually a strong ethnic element to what I do. That’s what I am, really.

 

 

Well it was part of an idea I had in 1994 which was to write a piece that was loosely classical but where the vocal sound was more like ethnic music and not like Western European traditional singing in order to make the vocal sound more tribal. Part of the equation was the disparate elements that went in to make the sound: there was the rhythmic drive, the vocal sound and then the invented language which was the third brick in the wall. It was when I started the project to combine these elements and I didn’t have text that I thought of scat singers (vocal jazz singers who make up phonetics to go along with what they are doing). So it’s a throwback to that, though it’s a lot more organized than that of course because if you have multiple singers, they need to sing the same thing. And it just came together like that. The language, and I keep calling it language (it’s always referred to as language for lack of a better word) isn’t a language because it conveys no meaning. It’s using the voice and the instruments, it’s an assemblage of phonetic sounds organized and arranged in a particular order that reflects sonically the mood of the music.

It took about 3 or 4 months to finish. It’s a fast-ish piece and skips along. It conveys the message of celebration: it’s uplifting. The question of text came up very early in that as well. So once again, I went back to the Adiemus idea of text (apart from the title) just because of the multiplicity of people involved in the school and also being in China. Instead of being in Chinese or English or a mixture, I thought it would be nice to do the Adiemus thing again (the style is a throw back to that again as there is also drumming). In terms of Chinese influences, there are a couple throughout the piece, one is I have the parallel 4^ths and parallel 5^ths harmonies that’s redolent of Asian music in a more superficial way but it gives that taste of where it is. The other intrinsically Chinese part is the er hu instrument, which is like a Chinese violin I suppose. So that has a couple of themes within the piece to give in an extra Chinese flavour.

No, not really. That implies ‘did I make it simple’. [laughs] I didn’t really, because I it would mean not being true to myself. It’s not insanely difficult though it skips along a bit I suppose, it’s going to need a bit of rehearsal but it’s not monumentally difficult. It’s fairly straightforward so I wrote it as though I was writing any of my other things and didn’t make any allowances for it being young people.

I don’t know a great deal about China but I went to Shanghai two years ago for a festival. I went to get the ambiance of the place for two or three days and then I came out to the UK and wrote the piece. I was due to go back to the premiere but I couldn’t go back because of the ash cloud over Iceland: the planes weren’t flying so I couldn’t go back. I wasn’t exposed too much but I enjoyed the culture immensely. I actually know a little bit about China: we eat a lot of Chinese food in London, as most cities do. So that side of things was great. I enjoyed it. I know little about influential Chinese composers, I know some of the Chinese-American like Tan Dun but I don’t know much about that really. So you better not put it in print! That might sound rude, but it’s not intentional! It’s just never come my way.

Well it was quite simple, I was approached by Shane O’Shea who wanted to involve me in it, and he thought it was an exciting prospect. He said he’d done my music in the past and would like to involve me in this festival. He asked if I would write a piece and that they would perform some of my other music. It was a very attractive proposition, really, a good opportunity for me to come to Beijing, which I’ve never been to (as I said Shanghai was my only previous visit) so I eagerly accepted.

No, not often. I mean, my involvement with this is purely is getting to know each other at the last moment with a short rehearsal near the concert. Most of the groundwork would have been done with chorus masters or conductors whenever and wherever. This is most certainly in progress now. It’s a question of getting it together on the last rehearsal. But I don’t usually work with young people, no I’m not a very good educationalist and neither am I a very good teacher. I’m a composer! And if I’m good at anything, that’s what I’m good at. I mean, some people are good communicators and some people aren’t, you know. That’s it really, I’m not a very good teacher.  

There are a couple I suppose. The first was the Adiemus concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which was quite a buzz because it was something that I never thought I could do live, because it was about two years after the first release of the first ‘Songs of Sanctuary’ album. That was pivotal. Lately was when I performed The Armed Man, A Mass for Peace I wrote, which has had almost 1,000 performances globally since the year 2000. I did that on the very day of 9/11 last year on the 10^th anniversary at the Lincoln Center in New York. It was a very emotional day and occasion. That’s the other thing that stands out and is probably the most emotional thing I’ve ever done.