Biography
Karl William Jenkins (born 17 February 1944) is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer. He is known for works including "Adiemus", "Palladio", "The Armed Man", "Requiem", and "Stabat Mater".
Jenkins was born in Penclawdd, Gower, Wales, now part of Swansea. His mother was of partial Swedish descent and his father was a schoolteacher, chapel organist and choirmaster, from whom he received his first musical instruction. His maternal grandfather was a Swedish sailor who settled in Wales. Between the ages of two and five, Jenkins lived in Gävle, Sweden, and he continued to visit the country later in life.
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He attended Gowerton Grammar School, studied music at Cardiff University, and undertook postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, where he later became a fellow and associate.
During the early part of his career, Jenkins worked primarily as a jazz and jazz-rock musician, playing baritone and soprano saxophones, keyboards and oboe. He joined 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, he collaborated with Linda Hoyle on her album "Pieces of Me", co-writing eight tracks, playing piano and oboe, and arranging and conducting the orchestra.
In 1972, Jenkins joined the Canterbury jazz fusion band Soft Machine, playing saxophone, oboe, flute and keyboards. With the group, he performed at venues including The Proms, Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival. "Six", the first Soft Machine album to feature Jenkins, received the Melody Maker British Jazz Album of the Year award in 1973. He became the group's principal composer from "Seven" onwards. Albums featuring his performances and compositions include "Six" (1973), "Seven" (1973), "Bundles" (1975), "Softs" (1976), "Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris" (1978) and "Land of Cockayne" (1981). Following the departure of Mike Ratledge in 1976, Soft Machine continued with changing line-ups centred on Jenkins and drummer John Marshall. Jenkins remained with the group until 1984 and has not participated in later incarnations of the band.
In November 1973, Jenkins and Ratledge took part in a BBC studio performance of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells", later released on Oldfield's "Elements" DVD.
From the 1980s, Jenkins composed music for advertising campaigns and developed a long-term association with the advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty. He created music for campaigns including Levi's "Russian" advertisements and De Beers commercials. Material from the latter was later developed into "Palladio". He also composed music for Renault Clio advertisements. His work in advertising received two industry awards.
Jenkins achieved wider recognition with the crossover project Adiemus. The album "Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary" (1995) reached the top of classical album charts and was followed by a series of themed releases. He has conducted Adiemus performances in Japan, Germany, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom. In 2014, he released a tribute song for the 2014 Winter Olympics with the ensemble Adiemus.
Among his large-scale choral compositions is "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace". He conducted a performance of the work in South Africa with the University of Johannesburg Kingsway Choir and a 70-piece orchestra. In November 2024, the "Benedictus" movement from the work was featured on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Soul Music".
Jenkins' choral work "The Peacemakers" premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City on 16 January 2012. Conducted by Jenkins, the seventeen-movement composition incorporates extracts from religious texts and writings by humanitarian figures. A recording featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and several choirs was released in March 2012, followed by additional performances in the United Kingdom and the United States.
He composed the music for the 2012 BBC Wales television series "The Story of Wales", presented by Huw Edwards.
"The Healer - A Cantata For St Luke" premiered on 16 October 2014 at St Luke's Church in Grayshott, Hampshire, and was later broadcast on Classic FM. Its United States premiere took place at Carnegie Hall on 19 January 2015. A recording of the premiere was released by Warner Classics as part of the boxed set "Voices".
In September 2015, a compilation album titled "Still with the Music" was released to coincide with the publication of Jenkins' autobiography of the same name.
On 8 October 2016, the choral work "Cantata Memoria: For the Children", composed in 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 by S4C and subsequently released as an album by Deutsche Grammophon.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.