Jeremy Jackman
choral director, composer & arranger

Over the years I have produced a fair quantity of compositions and arrangements, many of which came about because I (and those around me) needed them. They range from smaller-scale a cappella arrangements for The King's Singers and my two chamber choirs to larger-scale works for the concert platform and/or the theatre. MDs searching for innovative Christmas pieces offering a new (and often humorous) slant on well-known tunes will find enough here to keep them going for several years. Veni Emmanuel and Sea Tongue in very different ways combine mixed voices with children. All are designed to be practical and approachable, and those who have performed them in the past have often remarked on how much the performers enjoyed the rehearsals!

I've always said about composition that I am not, like some people, driven to write. In the past I have expressed it like this - "If it exists (and I like it) I'll use it; if it doesn't I'll write it". Not that I regard composing as a peripheral activity: on the contrary, it is an important part of my work.

These days commissions are more frequent, and I have to be very self-disciplined about deadlines. In the case of vocal/choral music the text is everything, and finding the right words is often far from easy. I vividly remember around the time of the Millennium Celebrations tearing my hair out trying to find what I wanted, and eventually discovering it in a translation of "The Confessions of St. Augustine" - a racier book than you might imagine, and certainly not my normal bed-time reading! I have recently (October 2004) finished a cantata for young voices and piano accompaniment to my own text, and when you learn that the title of this piece is "Sticky-Wacky-Steely-Rock-Grip-Chop-Bounce!" you will guess that it was the words again that caused a few sleepless nights. I have often likened composition to a boil on some inconvenient part of my anatomy; it grows and grows (often subconsciously) until it finally bursts, and that is the point at which everything has come together sufficiently to be able to start writing.

Just as often, ideas for a piece float unbidden into my head. By definition, these pieces are much easier to write, but the "when" and the "where" can occasionally be very inconvenient. In my King's Singers days I was driving to the BBC Studios at Pebble Mill in Birmingham for a TV show. Stephen Connolly was my passenger and we were late. Our performance the previous evening had finished much later than we might have wished, and Steve was taking advantage of the journey to close his eyes. Suddenly words started coming into my head for a song that we needed the following month, and had been puzzling and worrying all six of us for some time. Since I couldn't drive and write at the same time, I had no option. "Steve! Steve! Wake up!" Reluctantly Steve woke up, fished about for pencil and paper and wrote a couple of lines at my dictation. He glanced at me malevolently and subsided again into sleep. Five minutes later - "Steve! I've got some more!" This happened in all four times during the journey, and by the time we reached the outskirts of Birmingham you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

There is always some manuscript paper in my luggage (just in case!) and if you are considering a commission I should be happy to discuss it.