‘It can be very irritating, being a composer,’ laughs Errollyn Wallen. ‘You’re always trying to solve these ridiculous problems that you’ve set yourself. And sometimes you just want a day off, but the music won’t let you.’
Be it going for a walk or doing the washing up, Wallen somehow always finds herself lost in composition. ‘I’m obsessed by music. I can’t help it. So, I’ll try doing something else but I find I’m still thinking about whatever it is I’m working on. I’m an incredibly untidy person so at least washing up fulfils two functions: I feel good that I’m actually tidying something, and I’m also thinking.’
What is Errollyn Wallen's music like?
Wallen’s obsession with music is borne out in her extraordinary catalogue of works and accolades. Her music is beautiful, communicative and instinctive, yet always underpinned by a sense of profound technical mastery. A recipient of an Ivor Novello Award for her body of work, Wallen has written some 22 operas alongside a dizzying array of orchestral, chamber and vocal works.
Her music was commissioned for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games and the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, while her bold re-imagining of Jerusalem took the BBC Last Night of the Proms by storm in 2020. As evidenced by her remarkable output, for Wallen composing is ‘as natural as breathing’.
In person, she is terrifically warm and open, overflowing with words and ideas – she laughs at how ‘I never finish my sentences; you might have noticed’. Last year she had to finish a great deal of sentences, completing a memoir, Becoming a Composer, where she reflects on her musical journey, gives insight into her creative process and discusses (with satisfying candour) the hustle and grind of composing for a living.
It is a generous, beautiful and witty book, and does an excellent job of demystifying the life of the composer, not least through its discussion of Wallen’s compositional approaches without recourse to any sort of musical jargon: ‘I wanted to find a way of talking about composing that wouldn’t exclude people… that would encourage anyone from anywhere to make music.’
I wanted to find a way of talking about composing that wouldn’t exclude people
Errollyn Wallen on writing her book Becoming a Composer
Where was Errollyn Wallen born?
As she shares in Becoming a Composer, Wallen’s upbringing was complicated. Born in Belize, she moved as a child to London and was brought up by an uncle and aunt in Tottenham while her parents lived in New York. Her experiences growing up were painful and isolating: ‘surviving childhood’ was, she states, an achievement in itself.
Despite a sense of rejection and isolation, music was a powerful tonic: ‘The moment I began learning the piano, that was it. I loved everything about it. I didn’t suppose I was especially gifted, but I must have been very good at sight-reading because I’d go galloping through music. The piano was my window into the wide world of music.
'Stravinsky talked about how the piano is “the fulcrum” of his ideas and I know what he means; there’s a certain sort of thinking you do at the piano when composing, where everything becomes very clear. Even the way you sit at the piano – it’s like this marvellous table! – but at the same time, you’re transported to other places.’
Early forays into dance
Despite her love of the piano, Wallen first wanted to be a dancer. ‘I don’t think I was even especially good at dance, but I had this yearning to do it – certainly for ballet. I didn’t care about being in the front or being the best. I just wanted to be on stage with the music.’
She went on to study at the Dance Theatre of Harlem before embarking on a degree in dance and music at Goldsmiths. It was only then that she realised ‘music was the thing. One day I noticed what I was actually doing. There I was, sat at the piano again, and I thought: “You have to pay attention to what you’re really doing.”’
What are Errollyn Wallen's influences?
Music has remained ‘the thing’ and across her glittering career, Wallen has carved out a powerful and original musical voice that draws variously on serialism, the avant-garde, blues, gospel, jazz, minimalism and much more besides. In Becoming a Composer, she describes her music as resisting ‘being part of any sort of -ism (or indeed -wasm)’.
For Wallen, ‘With the vast history behind us and the various cultures and ideas swirling around us, it is more productive to stay alert, ever questioning the techniques we use in our work.’ This was not an easy path to follow, and the start of her career was chequered with rejection. But she was resolute: ‘I was never going to stop composing the music I had been waiting to hear.’
Wallen’s music often deals with powerfully political themes. Mighty River was commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act while her opera YES, created in collaboration with Bonnie Greer, explores Greer’s appearance on BBC Question Time in 2009 alongside the then-leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin.
‘I remember a critic at the time was furious, and said the subject of immigration had already been “done” in opera countless times. And that response was very interesting to me. As if it’s been “done”. As if.’
'There are so many stories that still need to be told'
While social justice is an important theme in Wallen’s works, ‘they’re also just stories I want to tell – often exploring aspects of life that I think aren’t spoken about enough. For me, everything starts from the point of view of the personal, from me imagining somebody and thinking, “What is it about this person that we can’t see? What’s happening behind the scenes?”
'There are so many stories that still need to be told. And I think we’re living in a climate now where people do at last have the ears to listen.’ That’s not to say it’s easy, though. She notes, ‘As a Black person I seem to have to do more thinking – personally, culturally and historically – than my white counterparts, often having to think for them or imagine their viewpoint without reciprocity.’ There is still much that needs to change.
Indeed, Wallen remains restless to ‘fling open the doors’ for composers entering the profession from less conventional musical backgrounds: ‘It strikes me that in classical music, particularly over the last 50 years, there’s been a stranglehold of the idea that you have to work in this way, or write in that style. And it doesn’t make sense.
'Write music from your own storehouse'
'For me, the most important thing a composer can do is give themselves permission to be who they are, and to write music from their own storehouse – their own treasure trove – of their background. I have many students from non-Western classical backgrounds and I always say, “Use that in your work. You don’t have to put on this coat and pretend to be somebody else.”’
This is something Wallen learned first hand. ‘I remember, when I started out, a friend clearly didn’t feel I looked “authentic” enough as a composer, and she said, “You’re going to have to start wearing glasses so that people will take you more seriously.” But I’ve always loved wearing clothes that are very flamboyant. And when people have said, “Oh, but you don’t look like a composer!” I now realise that’s their problem. It’s not mine.’ Indeed, Wallen has made something of a stir with her glorious outfits over the years.
'Bowing clothes'
Yet despite claiming to have ‘a very vain side’, she struggles with having to present herself onstage at the close of a premiere and describes herself as a ‘recovering shy and lumpy introvert’. On the theme of ‘bowing clothes’, as Wallen wryly terms them, she recalls the premiere of her oratorio Carbon 12 about coal mining in South Wales.
Wallen couldn’t resist the allure of a pair of ‘towering’ Terry de Havilland leather and metal wedges: ‘I was obsessed with these shoes, but I couldn’t walk in them. So, I thought, “If I put them in a plastic carrier bag and take them to the side of the stage, I can totter on with them, do the bow, then change back into sensible shoes offstage.”’
And the bow itself: does Wallen now enjoy this? ‘I hate it. As a performer I found it easier to take a bow. But when you’re sitting in the audience, hearing a piece you wrote, you feel embarrassed, exposed. And then I think, “Why do I need to go up on stage? It’s about the performers.” But you have to do it. I always worry I’ll fall over.’
One bow Wallen wasn’t dreading when we spoke was for her new Violin Concerto, written for Philippe Quint and the Calgary Philharmonic. ‘That bow feels different somehow. I can’t wait to take that bow because I want to say thank you to Philippe. I don’t take lightly the privilege of working with musicians who have had a lifetime’s study and devotion to the instrument.
On her new Violin Concerto
'It’s a two-way thing: a musician might come to me for a piece, but I have to find something that brings out their personality, and really showcases their specific talent.’ For this new Violin Concerto, Wallen asked Quint ‘if there was anything in his childhood that he wanted to share with me, and he told me about a lullaby his grandfather used to sing to him. So, I’ve had great delight in putting that in the second movement. I’m so happy about this, because the Concerto will always be for Philippe.’
Other projects brewing include a viola quintet for the Solem Quartet, a new song for Kiri Te Kanawa’s birthday celebrations and a new work for the Academy of St Martin in the Fields as part of their ‘Marriner 100’ festivities to mark the centenary of their founder Neville Marriner. Wallen also talks about her plans to return to performance in the near future.
‘To be a composer you’ve got to really understand the performative aspect of music. You need empathy with the performer and perhaps even to know what it is to be a performer.’ She is especially excited about the possibility of a collaboration with soprano Ruby Hughes (‘We want to come up with something unusual!’), whose new album with Manchester Collective, End of My Days, takes its name from a song featured in Wallen’s 2014 song cycle Are You Worried About the Rising Cost of Funerals?
'To be a composer you have to be absolutely alone'
While Wallen relishes such collaboration, she observes that, ‘To be a composer you do have to be absolutely alone.’ She spends much of her time in solitude in her two homes in Scotland: a lighthouse in Strathy, and a house by the sea in Orkney. ‘Quietness is a thing you can run away from,’ Wallen notes, ‘but as a composer, I can’t see a way around it.
'I fought it for so many years because it’s sometimes so boring! And it can be lonely. But you must have some solitude every day.’ She tempers this ascetic way of life with other pleasures. She is, it transpires, a great fan of ‘cake for breakfast’, and cheerfully relays that, ‘Last week I bought 24 pastries, which are in the freezer. I don’t know if they’ll last the week.’
Confectionery aside, it is clear Wallen remains in the service of her art: ‘You have to manage how you live your life to accommodate the demands of the music. There’s nothing else for it. There’s a moment when a piece just takes hold of you.’
Errollyn Wallen pics by John Millar