“Karl Jenkins has to be one of the most multi talented and popular composers of our time.”

Sir Karl Jenkins CBE is, globally, among the most performed living composers. In 2023 his music was played at the Coronation of King Charles III, and in the same year The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace gained the unique status of having achieved “1000 Weeks” in the UK Classical chart and was selected to represent the decade 2000-2009 in BBC Radio 3’s Soundscape of a Century. In 2025 The Armed Man reached no. 2 in the Classic FM “Hall of Fame” poll of the UK’s favourite classical music works, the highest-ever for a living composer.

Karl Jenkins read music at Cardiff University and the Royal Academy of Music, London. Resisting categorization, his style and integrity have transcended musical boundaries: jazz at Ronnie Scott’s Club; first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival with Nucleus, jazz fusion with Soft Machine, award-winning advert soundtracks (Levis, British Airways, Audi); scoring a Kiefer Sutherland movie; the Freedom of the City of London, BBC Desert Island Discs, ITV South Bank Show and, in the distant past, recording sessions with many: Elton John, George Harrison, Andrew Lloyd Webber and more.

Together with his global ‘cross-genre’ phenomenon Adiemus (1995), his best-known work is The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace (2000), which has received over 3000 performances around the globe since its millennium premiere.

Memorable performances include New York on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the Mercedes Benz Arena, Berlin with the World Orchestra for Peace and a choir of 2000 from 30 countries, commemorating 100 years since the end of World War I.

These two works have been pivotal to his future oeuvre over 30 years, as he has continued to progress ideas key to those pieces; peace, multiculturism and the inclusion of global instrumentation and text, often set alongside traditional sacred Latin texts: Requiem, Stabat Mater, Gloria, Miserere, The Peacemakers.

Karl Jenkins has 17 ‘gold and platinum’ discs for his output. Alongside his solo recordings, he has written music for Sir Bryn Terfel, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Leslie Garrett, Rolando Villazon, Milos Karadaglic, Jess Gillam and the London Symphony Orchestra.

His reach as a composer is global, with concerts at The Royal Albert Hall, Zaryadye Hall Moscow, Carnegie Hall, The Forbidden City Concert Hall Beijing, the NCPA Mumbai and Buckingham Palace.

Karl Jenkins was awarded a Knighthood in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours and his autobiography Still with the Music was published by Elliott & Thompson. His music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes and he is a Decca Records recording artist. In 2024 Decca bestowed upon him the unprecedented distinction of a Lifetime deal, the first time the label has made such a commitment to any artist.

His most recent work is One World, conducted by the composer and performed by the World Choir for Peace and the World Orchestra for Peace. It was released by Decca Records in summer 2023, going straight to number one in the UK Classical chart. It received its concert premiere at the Brucknerhaus in Linz in November 2023 with over 700 singers from around the world.

His recent saxophone concerto “Stravaganza” was premiered by Jess Gillam and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester at the Berlin Philharmonie in June 2023 and at the BBC Proms in 2024.“

As a composer he recognises no boundaries – musical, commercial, geographical, or cultural. His is a way of thinking and composing that is perfectly in tune with the spirit of the times” – citation on receiving CFM’s ‘Red f ‘award for ‘outstanding service to classical music’.