Adiemus

Adiemus (pronounced /ædiˈeɪməs/) is the title of a series of albums by British composer Karl Jenkins. It is also the title of the opening track on the first album in the series, Songs of Sanctuary.

	Karl Jenkins - "Adiemus" an excerpt from the piece.
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Concept

Each Adiemus album is a collection of song-length pieces featuring harmonised vocal melody against an orchestral background. There are no lyrics as such: instead the vocalists sing syllables and 'words' invented by Jenkins. However, rather than creating musical interest from patterns of phonemes (as in scat singing, or in numerous classical and crossover compositions), the language of Adiemus is carefully stylised so as not to distract the listener's attention from the pitch and timbre of the voice—for example, syllables ending in consonants are rare. The core concept of Adiemus is that the voice should be allowed to function as nothing more than an instrument, an approach that has become something of a trend in recent choral writing (compare, for example Vangelis's score for the film 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)).^[1] The word Adiemus itself resembles a Latin word meaning 'We will draw near', though incorrectly formed; Jenkins claims to have been unaware of this.^[2]

Instrumentation and performers

• Scoring (Songs of Sanctuary): recorder, 8 percussion, 4 tom-toms, congas, cymbals, suspended cymbals, claves, floor tom, bass drum, mark tree, bass bell in C, cabassa, wood block, triangle, strings
• Scoring (Cantata Mundi):2 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes (1 doubling on English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, 9 percussionists: claves, cowbell, güiro, 2 cabacas, triangle, chenchen, Egyptian tabla, doholla, tom-tom, cymbals, chekere, xylophone, glockenspiel, bass marimba, bongos, rek, udu pot, tablas, sticks, pandeiro, timbales, surdo, bass drum, tamtam, suspended cymbals, tambourine, solo recorder, strings (featuring on album are also the violin, electro-acoustic percussion and gemshorn)
• Scoring (Dances of Time): 7 singers, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, 8 percussionists: bass drum, bongos, cowbell, chekere, chocolla, cymbals, claves, congas, cabaca, castanets, dholak, güiro, 5 low drums, low chekere, marimba, rainmaker, rek, snare drum, shaker, surdo, tom-tom, tabla, tamborim, tambourine, timpani, triangle, udo, wood block, xylophone, recorder, strings (featuring on album are also the electro-acoustic percussion and gemshorn)
• Scoring (The Eternal Knot) recorder, accordion, percussion, harp, strings (on album also the acoustic guitar, Uilleann pipes)
• Scoring (Vocalise): for voices and orchestra

The session singer Miriam Stockley performed the vocal parts on the first four albums. Additional vocals were provided by Mary Carewe on all but Dances of Time, which saw the introduction of the Finnish Adiemus Singers (who would later reappear on Vocalise). Extra vocals and the chorus effects were created by overdubbing multitracked recordings of the singers (in some cases up to forty times) and varying the speed of the tape. Stockley was described by Jenkins as central to the Adiemus project due to her range and intonation, however for reasons that remain unclear she was not re-engaged for Vocalise.

The Songs of Sanctuary orchestra consisted of a string section augmented by various ethnic percussion instruments, with occasional further additions such as bells, a recorder and a quena. Mike Ratledge, with whom Jenkins had played in Soft Machine, contributed to the first album as well. Jenkins added brass and woodwind for Cantata Mundi, and continued to add more diverse instruments such as acoustic guitar on later albums. From Songs of Sanctuary to Dances of Time, the London Philharmonic Orchestra was used; Jenkins later formed his own Adiemus Orchestra to perform on The Eternal Knot recordings, returning to the LPO for Vocalise.

The Adiemus Singers

• Pirjo Aittomäki
• Mervi Hiltunen
• Anna-Mari Kähärä
• Merja Rajala
• Säde Rissanen
• Hanna-Riikka Siitonen
• Mia Simanainen
• Nina Tapio
• Riikka Timonen

Albums

• Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary (1995)
• Adiemus II: Cantata Mundi (1997)
• Adiemus III: Dances of Time (1998)
• Adiemus IV: The Eternal Knot (2001)
• Adiemus V: Vocalise (2003)

• The Journey: The Best of Adiemus (2000)
• Adiemus Live (2002)
• Adiemus New Best & Live (2002)
• The Essential Adiemus (2003)

Musical style

Though there has been considerable evolution over the course of the project, the musical language of Adiemus draws heavily on classical and world music. Jenkins follows conventions of tonality up to a point—his harmony is derived from gospel and African music, decorated with functional dissonances such as suspensions and with greater freedom of movement between loosely related key areas. He avoids the most common time signatures, such as 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4, with a slow 3/2 being very characteristic along with 6/8, 9/8 and even 5/8 (Cantus Inaequalis from Songs of Sanctuary). "Free time" is also prominent, in this as well as the majority of new age projects. The percussion section, when used prominently, typically gives the pieces an upbeat, tribal-like rhythm.

The underlying mood of Adiemus is generally either energetic and uplifting or calm and tranquil, complemented by pieces with what Jenkins describes as an ecclesiastical mood. Many listeners identify the sound of Adiemus with New Age or Celtic music; indeed The Eternal Knot is an explicitly Celtic-themed album that formed the sound-track for the S4C documentary The Celts. In classical music circles Adiemus has struggled to distance itself from the chill out quasi-genre, but the earlier albums are considered important crossover works nonetheless.

Audience

Songs of Sanctuary was a huge commercial success, topping classical album charts. It is considered by critics to be the quintessential album, on which Jenkins' vision succeeds to the greatest extent with the fewest resources. Though none of its successors has achieved the same critical acclaim, Adiemus acquired a cult following and maintained a place in mainstream consciousness through its use in TV commercials, in particular the track Adiemus in a Delta Air Lines commercial (for which the project began), and Cantilena from Cantata Mundi in a recent Cheltenham & Gloucester commercial. It was also the 8th feature track of the original, and sensationally popular, 1997 Pure Moods album. The Adiemus track was used at the beginning and end of James Brandon's magic show "Imagine" which played at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas in the late 1990s, and is currently used as the soundtrack behind the Kubla Khan pillar show at the end of the big room cave tour in Kartchner Caverns State Park in Arizona. Additionally, Adiemus was used in the trailer to Invisible Children's documentary movie, and featured in the titles of the 1997 BBC children's series Testament: The Bible in Animation. It is also used in the New South Wales Tourism TV commercials (Australia). The Adiemus track was also used as an unofficial soundtrack to the Italian tv program Stargate, a weekly La7 and former TMC documentary on archaeology and mystical topics. In South Korea, Adiemus was used to showcase the world phone service of SK Telecom in 2004. It is now additionally used in the tourist commercial produced by Tourism New South Wales^[3].

External links

• Adiemus on MySpace
• Adiemus Unofficial Homepage
• Adiemus on Last.fm

References