Jenni Roditi

ARTIST: Jenni Roditi

COUNTRY: UK

GENRE: Opera, choral, chamber, orchestral and vocal music, in the best European theatrical and sacred minimalist school traditions

DESCRIPTION: Jenni Roditi moves from minimal to maximal through distinctive composition and genre shifting voice. Singer composer, big canvas creator, vocal extender, emotional engager, her music defies definition and simultaneously creates it own.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY:

- “Devotion that Moves the Heart” (for 8 voices and keyboard) (2005)

SELECTED PRESS REVIEWS AND QUOTES:

“The festival will open this year with Jenni Roditi’s stunning dance opera ‘The Decent of Inanna’. This is a truly unique work that straddles the boundaries of opera, musical theatre, western art music and influences from the Middle East and India. From its opening bars the score dazzles with an immediacy that is so rare within contemporary music today that it displays a perfect understanding of its need to be a staged performance work. Inanna really exemplifies everything that Grimeborn is about from its interest in diverse cultures, theatre and drama to the vitality of the cast and their passion to be part of the performance.” (Alex Sutton, Grimeborn Opera Festival)

“Her interest lies in recent developments in voice production and expression, and her work, both as performer and composer, shows this to a degree unmatched by any other contemporary creative musician in Britain.” (Musical Opinion Magazine)

“A huskily eloquent tale-spinner, a passionate narrator between some robustly written ensembles. A score characterised by a vigorous near minimalism.” (The Times)

“Echoes ranging from Sondheim and Reich to African and Middle Eastern rhythms and cantillations.” (The Independent)

“A beautiful, meditative, immediately accessible score.” (Musical Opinion Magazine)

“Jenni Roditi’s Spirit Child had the energy, the urgency and the directness of expression that so much well-intentioned new music lacks. I don’t know if Spirit Child will ever melt stony hearts in Beijing, but it certainly melted mine. The ardent lyricism that emerged… in Roditi’s opera Inanna was sustained here.” (The Independent)

“It was Jenni Roditi who provided by far the best piece. A brittle, occasionally even brash, somewhat Varesian work, full of panache and a fine sense of how to handle such drama in orchestral terms.” (Classical Music Magazine)

“A meditatively powerful musical form. Simple and striking melodic colours. Textures of silk and velvet.” (Evening Standard)

“The music showed originality.” (The Observer)

“Casts aside many of the operatic connotations in favour of a highly approachable piece, which would almost be as acceptable in concert form.” (The Stage)

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