Collaborative Karl
Working with leading performers
Karl Jenkins has written works for an extraordinary range of musicians, from Kiri Te Kanawa to Jess Gillam…:
Prince Charles commissioned a double harp concerto, Crossing the Stone, for Royal Harpist Catrin Finch and her teacher Elinor Bennett in 2001.
Evelyn Glennie gave the premiere of Jenkins’s arrangement of La Folia (The leaf) for marimba and strings, based on a Corelli violin sonata, in 2004.
After singing Jenkins’s In These Stones Horizons Sing at the opening of the Wales Millennium Centre, bassbaritone Bryn Terfel asked him to write something for his 2005 album Simple Gifts. ‘Ave verum corpus’ featured Terfel and baritone Simon Keenlyside.
The LSO commissioned a work to celebrate its centenary year in 2005. Quirk, the suitably quirky threemovement piece was conducted by Colin Davis. One movement, ‘Chasing the Goose’, was inspired by Jenkins’s own disobedient geese.
Kiri Te Kanawa’s 2006 album Kiri Sings Karl: Songs of Mystery & Enchantment features a collection of songs written, arranged and conducted by Karl Jenkins.
Stravaganza was written for star saxophonist Jess Gillam, a commission by BBC Radio 3 and the Deutsches Symphonie-orchester Berlin. The UK premiere with BBC National Orchestra of Wales was part of a St David’s Day celebration at the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea on 29 February 2024.
Fragile Earth receives its world premiere performance on 6 April 2024 from the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, of which Jenkins is an Honorary Fellow.