Welcome
Composer
Jenni Roditi (b. 1961) began composing music at six and, to a significant degree, taught herself to compose through the sheer amount of improvising, songwriting, and composing she did before entering the Guildhall School of Music as an undergraduate first study composer in 1981. Her main composition teacher was Robert Saxton, and she had a few lessons with Oliver Knussen.
In 1984, she began working as a composer and workshop leader, deciding to leave academia after gaining her GGSM (equivalent to BMus). In 2011, 27 years later, she earned an MMus Distinction in Twenty-First Century Music from Brunel University with Christopher Fox and Peter Wiegold as composition tutors.
In 1997, Denby Richards, editor of Musical Opinion magazine, said of a review of her piece Spirit Child Prelude, “That is a review you would want etched on your gravestone!” Later, he said on the phone he was ‘held and fascinated’ by the opera that grew out of it, Siddhartha Spirit Child and went on to say, “I want to speak with you for an hour before I know what to say about your musical language,” which, after a moment of self-doubt, Jenni realised was a positive comment!
Above – 1967, the first piece, Mountains High.
Words by Booby (Alex) Cowan, also age 6.
Mountains high, Over the sky I fly. Now you’ve been, Trails of love may be seen. All my life, I have been searching for you, Now I’ve found, What love can re-ally do.
Leader
Jenni is committed to the improvising voice, helping others find an authentic freestyle, coached and guided vocal language through her projects Vocal Tai Chi and TIC! The Improvisers’ Choirs.
She runs monthly Sunday workshops in Vocal Tai Chi where the practice is introduced, and a bi-yearly Vocal Tai Chi Apprenticeship, taking people through to a certificate to share and teach the work.
The choirs project was founded in 2015. Jenni uses a simple system of signals to direct and shape the improvisations. She has a fluid and grounded approach as a leader, offering her vocal style, compositional instincts and ‘conduction’ to help lead.
Performer
Jenni performs her compositions for voice, piano and occasionally guitar. She is a keen vocal improviser and has collaborations with harpist Alistair Smith and electric guitarist Adrian Lee, and the Off Beat trio with cellist Kate Shortt and pianist Hayden Parsey. She was a regular improviser at the Vortex Jazz Club’s Freedom sessions and has appeared at Club Inégales several times.
From 2002 – 2008, she ran house concerts in her home, The Loft, where she hosted over 100 events with at least 250 performers (including herself occasionally) and around 3000 audience members over seven years.
In 2009, she performed at Kings Place, Hall One on their limousine Steinway-A grand piano, as a singer, with her piano music Long Songs and Simple Songs, joined by musician friends in a half-evening set, supporting composer Andrew Poppy.
Through the 1990s, she sang in various productions of her second opera, The Descent of Inanna, as the Tale Spinner. Her first professional performances were with Peter Wiegold’s contemporary music ensembles Gemini and Turning Point, where she performed new music-theatre pieces, improvised and composed in Turning Point and was a reciter of Edith Sitwell’s surreal poetry in William Walton’s Façade, An Entertainment for Gemini.
Writer
In 2019, Jenni was invited to contribute a chapter to the then-forthcoming Routledge Global Companion to Women and Musical Leadership, the Nineteenth Century and Beyond. Her chapter, which is titled Beyond Music Workshops, a Composer and a Community, was published in August 2024. The chapter details her ‘leadership journey’ in response to the book’s title, and how this led to her founding Vocal Tai Chi and The Improvisers’ Choirs.
Jenni has always been a poet and lyricist with many songs for which she wrote the words in younger years. Recently, she set her poetry to music in her latest composition, The Brimming Stone.
Jenni lives and works in Crouch End, North London, UK.
Credits
Painting by Melanie Silgardo. Photos of Jenni composing and looking at the chapter, Anna Tilden. Jenni performing, by Katie Rose and with her choir, photo by David Godfrey. The poem on the right sidebar (in the menu pages) is an extract from Song Line Mask, which can be found in full on the poetry page. Music on the left sidebar (in the menu pages) is from The Brimming Stone, which can be accessed through this post.
Website designed by Stephanie Boucher of Applegreen Websites in collaboration with JR.