Clive Jenkins
The British composer Clive Jenkins was born in Plymouth in 1938 and educated at Plymouth College and Pembroke College, Oxford, where he read modern languages.
He shows his West of England roots in many of his compositions. The concert overture Heart of Dartmoor, the recently premièred orchestral suite Moorland Music, the narrative work White Bird based on a Dartmoor ghost story and the widely-performed cantata The Mayflower Pilgrims are just four examples.
Other choral compositions include Psalm settings and Christmas music which have featured on independent television.
He was conductor of the City of Plymouth Light Orchestra for many years and wrote and presented programmes about West Country music for the BBC in Devon and Cornwall. Plymouth Museum & Art Gallery commissioned several chamber pieces from him. The Five Pieces for Clarinet which marked ten years of lunchtime recitals at the Museum have been recorded by Peter Cigleris on the CD English Fantasy (Cala Records).
His music is widely played. Two suites of organ pieces, Three Pastorales and Three Preludes, are published by Selah in the USA. He has been championed in the USA by the Harvard University organist Carson Cooman. More organ music – Four Mayflower Portraits and On Dartmoor – is published by his main (British) publisher, Goodmusic.The Rhapsody for harmonica and orchestra is published by Hohner in Germany. This appeared with the Viola Romance on the Heritage CD British Serenade.
Clive has worked as associate composer with the South West Sinfonietta and the Ten Tors Orchestra, writing concertos for oboe, clarinet and trumpet as well as shorter pieces featuring solo violin, viola and horn.
Currently associate composer with the Chamber Ensemble of London, he is often called upon to compose / arrange music for special concert programmes at venues like the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Banqueting House. The Ensemble has also played him at St Martin-in-the-Fields, St James’s Piccadilly, Kings Place, Conway Hall and the Purcell Room as well as for music clubs and festivals around the country.
A major work about World War 1, No Man’s Land, for string orchestra with double bass solo with poems by English, French, German and Russian writers between the movements has had many performances. Translations by the composer.
His 80th birthday was marked by a concert in the Great Hall at Dartington by the Chamber Ensemble of London including a work for piano and strings composed for the pianist Margaret Fingerhut. She later recorded this Piano Concertino for the SOMM label.
Pianists Mark Bebbington and Duncan Honeybourne have also played him – notably the Four Piano Pieces published by Goodmusic.
CEOL has recorded some of his music for EM Records. The CD Over Hill, Over Dale features his much-played Sinfonietta for Strings. The Ensemble’s double CD Set in Silver features two jazz-based pieces and a reissue of his Pastorale & Allegro.
He lives with his wife Sheila near the sea in the South Hams.
