Jenkins, K: In Paradisum (Requiem)

Dame Kiri’s voice is multi-tracked. ‘Nine versions of me,’ explains the New Zealand superstar. ‘We call it the Kiri Chorus!’ Jenkins found the results fascinating. ‘We’ve laid her upon herself and the sound’s quite magical. It’s different to anything else. It’s not done in a pop way where people very often add vibrato and make it match so that the voice is pulsing on the wave. She just sings it – and she sings it how she feels it. Against that, when we need a more kind of tribal earthy kind of element, I’ve used some Adiemus style voices.’

“Karl Jenkins is one of those composers who work in the highly profitable world between classical and film music. To thrive in that area you need to know your classical music inside out, so you can call on all its expressive resources, and you need to be able to blend old-fashioned orchestral expertise with slick studio production values….. Jenkins shows that he has those qualities in spades.” The Times