Karl Jenkins Explained

Karl Jenkins
Honorific Prefix:Sir
Honorific Suffix: HonFLSW
Birth Name:Karl William Pamp Jenkins
Birth Date:1944 2, df=yes
Birth Place:Penclawdd, Gower, Wales (Now part of Swansea)
Years Active:1970–present

Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins,, HonFLSW (born 17 February 1944) is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer. His best known works include the song "Adiemus" (1995, from the Adiemus album series), Palladio (1995), The Armed Man (2000), his Requiem (2005) and his Stabat Mater (2008).

Jenkins was educated in music at Cardiff University and the Royal Academy of Music, and he is a fellow and an associate of the latter. He joined the jazz-rock band Soft Machine in 1972 and became the group's lead songwriter in 1974. He continued to work with Soft Machine until 1984, but has not been involved with any incarnation of the group since. He has composed music for advertising campaigns and has won the industry prize twice.

Biography

Early life and education

Jenkins was born and raised in Penclawdd, Gower, Wales (now part of Swansea). His mother was Swedish, and his father was Welsh. He received his initial musical instruction from his father, who was the local schoolteacher, chapel organist and choirmaster. He attended Gowerton Grammar School.[1]

Jenkins studied music at Cardiff University and then commenced postgraduate studies in London at the Royal Academy of Music.[2]

Early career: Graham Collier's group and Nucleus

For the bulk of his early career, Jenkins was known as a jazz and jazz-rock musician, playing baritone and soprano saxophones, keyboards and oboe, an unusual instrument in a jazz context. He joined jazz composer Graham Collier's group and later co-founded the jazz-rock group Nucleus, which won first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1970. In 1971, Jenkins collaborated with Linda Hoyle on her album Pieces of Me, co-writing 8 of the 11 tracks, playing piano and oboe, as well as arranging and conducting the orchestra.[3]

Soft Machine

In 1972, Jenkins joined the Canterbury jazz fusion rock band Soft Machine, playing saxophone, oboe and flute along with keyboard instruments. The group played venues including The Proms, Carnegie Hall, and the Newport Jazz Festival. The album Six, on which Jenkins first played with Soft Machine, won the Melody Maker British Jazz Album of the Year award in 1973. Jenkins also won the miscellaneous musical instrument section (as he did the following year). Soft Machine was voted best small group in the Melody Maker jazz poll of 1974. The albums in which Jenkins performed and composed were Six (1973), Seven (1973), Bundles (1975), Softs (1976) and Land of Cockayne (1981). Jenkins was the group's primary composer on Seven and the subsequent three albums.

After Mike Ratledge left the band in 1976, Soft Machine did not include any of its founding members, but kept recording on a project basis with line-ups revolving around Jenkins and drummer John Marshall. Although Melody Maker had positively reviewed the Soft Machine of 1973 and 1974, Hugh Hopper, involved with the group since replacing bassist Kevin Ayers in 1968, cited Jenkins's "third rate" musical involvement in his own decision to leave the band,[4] and the band of the late 1970s has been described by band member John Etheridge as wasting its potential.[5]

Other works

In November 1973, Jenkins and Ratledge participated in a live-in-the-studio performance of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells for the BBC.[6] It is available on Oldfield's Elements DVD.

Works

Jenkins has created advertising music, twice winning the industry prize in that field. From the 1980s, he developed a relationship with Bartle Bogle Hegarty, starting with composing musics for their Levi's jeans "Russian" series. He composed a classical theme used by De Beers diamond merchants for their television advertising campaign focusing on jewellery worn by people otherwise seen only in silhouette. Jenkins later included this as the title track in a compilation called Diamond Music, and eventually created Palladio, using it as the theme of the first movement. Other arrangements have included advertisements for the Renault Clio.

As a composer, his breakthrough came with the crossover project Adiemus. Jenkins has conducted the Adiemus project in Japan, Germany, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well as London's Royal Albert Hall and Battersea Power Station. The (1995) album topped the classical album charts. It spawned a series of successors, each revolving around a central theme. In 2014 Jenkins released a tribute song for the 2014 Winter Olympics, performed by his new age music group also called Adiemus.[7]

Jenkins was the first international composer and conductor to conduct the University of Johannesburg Kingsway Choir led by Renette Bouwer, during his visit to South Africa as the choir performed his The Armed Man: A mass for peace together with a 70-piece orchestra.

Jenkins' choral work The Peacemakers was first performed in New York City's Carnegie Hall on 16 January 2012. Jenkins conducted from the podium and John H. Briggs, Sr. conducted the Children's Chorus from a seated position.[8] The seventeen-movement piece features extracts from religious texts and works by notable humanitarians. A recording was released on 26 March 2012; it features the London Symphony Orchestra and several choirs, as well as guest vocalists and instrumentalists. Additional concerts in the UK and US took place later in the year.[9]

Jenkins composed the music for the 2012 BBC Wales series The Story of Wales presented by Huw Edwards.[10]

A work entitled The Healer – A Cantata For St Luke was premiered on 16 October 2014 (7:30 pm) in St Luke's Church, Grayshott, Hampshire, and was recorded and broadcast on Classic FM.[11] The Healer received its US premiere at Carnegie Hall, New York on 19 January 2015. In September 2015, the recording of the premiere of The Healer was released on CD by Warner Classics as part of the 8-disc boxed set Voices.

A compilation CD Still with the Music was also released in September 2015, coinciding with the publication of his autobiography of the same name.

On 8 October 2016 Jenkins' choral work Cantata Memoria: For the children, a response to the 1966 Aberfan disaster with a libretto by Mererid Hopwood and commissioned by S4C, premiered at the Wales Millennium Centre. The concert was broadcast the following evening on S4C and was released as an album by Deutsche Grammophon.[12] [13]

Musical style

Lyrics

Many of the songs written by Jenkins have specifically written phonetic lyrics, but they are not in any language.[14] Instead, they are syllables intended to have a musical effect, but not to carry any specific meaning.[14] This glossolalia is similar to the sounds of "scat singing", except that this latter artform sometimes emphasises of-the-moment improvisation as well.[15]

The composer has said the lyrics to his "Adiemus" series of songs are in "an invented language", and have no particular meaning.[14] He has observed, "The text was written phonetically with the words viewed as instrumental sound, the idea being to maximise the melisma by removing the distraction, if one can call it that, of words”.[14] Some listeners compare his lyrics to the Latin language, but other critics discount such a connection.[16]

Other songs he has written use Biblical or literary texts for the lyrics.

Awards and achievements

Jenkins was awarded an honorary doctorate in music by the University of Wales in 2006.[17] He has been made both a fellow (FRAM) and an associate (ARAM) of the Royal Academy of Music] in 2003,[18] and a room has been named in his honour. He also has had fellowships at Cardiff University (2005),[19] the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Trinity College Carmarthen and Swansea Metropolitan University. In 2022, he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (HonFLSW).[20]

In 2008, Jenkins' The Armed Man was listed as No. 1 in Classic FM's "Top 10 by living composers".[21]

He has been awarded an honorary doctorate in music by the University of Leicester, the Chancellor's Medal by the University of Glamorgan and honorary visiting professorships at Thames Valley University, London College of Music and the ATriUM, Cardiff.[22]

Jenkins was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2005 New Year Honours and promoted to Commander of the same Order (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours, in both cases for services to music.[23] [24] In the 2015 Birthday Honours he was made a Knight Bachelor "for services to Composing and Crossing Musical Genres."[25] [26]

Jenkins is joint president of the British Double Reed Society[27] and Patron of the International Schools Choral Music Society (ISCMS).

In 2016, Jenkins received the BASCA Gold Badge Award for his unique contribution to music.[28]

Jenkins' work Welsh: Tros y Garreg (Welsh for Crossing the Stone) was performed at the coronation of King Charles III in 2023,[29] with Jenkins in attendance.[30]

Discography

With Graham Collier

The Graham Collier Septet :
The Graham Collier Sextet :
Compilations :

With Neil Ardley – Don Rendell – Ian Carr

With Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber

With Nucleus

Nucleus :
Ian Carr with Nucleus :
Compilation :

With The Chitinous Ensemble

With Barry Guy/The London Jazz Composers' Orchestra

Albums studio :
Live albums :
Compilations :

With Mike Oldfield

With Planet Earth

With Plaza

With Rollercoaster

With Mike Ratledge

With JAR

With Kiri Te Kanawa

Adiemus

See main article: article and Adiemus (albums).

Studio albums :

Compilations

Film score

Other works

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Alumni: Karl Jenkins . Cardiff University School of Music . 22 February 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150222162627/http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/music/alumni/profiles/karljenkins.html . 22 February 2015 .
  2. Web site: Karl Jenkins: Biography . 17 March 2016.
  3. Web site: Karl Jenkins Credits . 2023-08-02 . AllMusic . en.
  4. Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous, Graham Bennett, 2008 p. 246.
  5. Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous, Graham Bennett, 2008 p. 324.
  6. Web site: Second House: Tubular Bells . Mike Oldfield . Memorable TV . 24 April 2011.
  7. Web site: Olympic Tribute Song by Adiemus . 8 January 2014 . John P. . Olsen . New Age Music World.
  8. Web site: Search Results . 2024-06-13 . catalogue.royalalberthall.com.
  9. Web site: Warner releases world-premiere recording of The Healer as part of 'Still With the Music' collection . Karl Jenkins.
  10. Web site: The Story of Wales . . 20 January 2016.
  11. Web site: Grayshott Concerts: World Premier of "The Healer – A Cantata for St Luke" by Karl Jenkins . 2014 . grayshott.com . 16 August 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150924023729/http://www.grayshott.com/wordpress/groups/grayshott-concerts/calendar/event/1397/ . 24 September 2015 . dead .
  12. News: Aberfan: Sir Karl Jenkins' choral memorial to disaster . Geraint . Thomas . 7 October 2016 . BBC . 10 October 2016.
  13. News: Elin Manahan Thomas and Karl Jenkins perform Aberfan memorial . 8 October 2016 . southwales-eveningpost.co.uk . 10 October 2016.
  14. Web site: Roberts . Maddy Shaw . The meaning behind the lyrics to 'Adiemus' by Karl Jenkins . Classic FM . 2022-02-09 . en . 5 May 2021.
  15. Web site: Childed . Serg . The meaningless song lyrics of Adiemus . MusicTales . 2022-02-09 . April 4, 2021.
  16. Web site: Barone . Brian . An Aural History of "Adiemus" . The Awl . 2022-02-09 . en . 3 October 2016.
  17. Web site: Edwards . Fiona . Honorary doctorate for Adiemus composer . DigitalSpy . 19 January 2006 . Hearst UK . 8 May 2023.
  18. Web site: Honours . Royal Academy of Music.
  19. Web site: Cardiff University: Alumni. 16 March 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160322085414/http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/alumni/our-alumni/prominent-alumni/celebrity. 22 March 2016. dead.
  20. Web site: Four Honorary Fellows Elected to Learned Society of Wales . 3 May 2022 . Learned Society of Wales.
  21. Web site: Top 10 by living composers . Classic FM . 2008 . 21 August 2012.
  22. Web site: Explore the Music of Karl Jenkins Hal Leonard Online . 2024-06-13 . Hal Leonard Online . en.
  23. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/57509/supplement "New Year Honours—United Kingdom"
  24. Web site: Special Reports. Channel 4 News.
  25. United Kingdom:
  26. http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/13/queens-birthday-honours-heres-the-full-list-5243692/ Metro, 13 June 2015
  27. Web site: About the BDRS . British Double Reed Society . 24 February 2009 . 24 February 2009.
  28. News: Music Week. BASCA Gold Badge Award winners revealed. Daniel Gumble. 4 October 2016. 2 July 2018.
  29. News: King Charles III coronation: Sir Karl Jenkins piece to be played. BBC News . 5 May 2023.
  30. News: Yeates . Cydney . Myleene Klass debunks mystery surrounding identity of coronation guest . 8 May 2023 . Metro . 7 May 2023 .
  31. Web site: Soft Machine – MP3 Collection . . 6 August 2023 .

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Karl Jenkins".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.