"Karl Jenkins? ...always impeccable writing for a multitude of voices and instruments. I wish I had his talent to compose tunes but am proud to consider myself as one who adores to sing them."
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Britain's most successful contemporary composer, Karl Jenkins. He is most famous for developing a style that fuses his classical background with his interest in jazz and world music and his albums top the charts around the world. He was brought up in a small Welsh village and, after his mother died, lived with his father, grandmother and widowed aunt. His father taught him the piano when he was a child and in his teens he gravitated towards the oboe and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music.