Alexander L’Estrange conducted a massed choir of 500 children, one of the largest choirs assembled in Jersey, at Jersey Sings Across the Bay on 19th June 2024.
Alexander L’Estrange is an award-winning British composer, arranger, jazz musician and choral animateur of international acclaim. He is best known for his popular series of 40-minute choral works for SATB choir, unison children and jazz quintet which began with Zimbe! Come, sing the songs of Africa!. The piece took the choral world by storm, firmly establishing L’Estrange as one of the most popular choral composers of our age. The most recent work in the series, Freedom! The Power of Song, was written in collaboration with his wife, composer and lyricist Joanna Forbes L’Estrange.
L’Estrange’s sacred anthems are recorded by the award-winning chamber choir Tenebrae on their On Eagles’ Wings album. He is the go-to arranger for world-class vocal groups including The King’s Singers and has written hundreds of arrangements of songs from across the musical spectrum for Faber Music’s Choral Basics series.
Please give us a few personal/background details
I'm a professional composer, arranger and workshop leader, and I love working with musicians of all types, professional, amateur, adult, children. I really believe that singing is the most valuable musical gift we can give our children.
What do you consider incisive moments in your career?
There are two! When I was 6 years old, I was lucky enough to become a chorister in a choir in Oxford, a famous choir called New College Oxford. My mum, who was a single mother, was very ill and in hospital. So, I was living with my grandparents, and a friend said, “Do you know there's this thing called a choir school? At a choir school in Oxford, you can board between the ages of 7 to 12, you won't have to pay a thing and your child will sing in the best choir in the world!”. So, there I went! We travelled around Europe singing, sang six services weekly in the beautiful medieval chapel in New College. I was obviously a musical child, I think my mum recognised that, but at my choir school I learnt everything: sight reading, team skills, professionalism, how to sing a solo, how to sing in different languages, Latin, French, German, Italian, and, as I say, to be part of a team. I realised then that singing was going to be part of my life in some way.
The next decisive moment was straight after university. I was 21. I read music at Oxford University, and I thought, what do I do now? I love jazz, conducting, playing the piano, working with choirs. And then someone said, “Would you like to play the part of Spot the Dog's dad in a musical theatre show and tour around the UK for three months?”. So I said yeah, let's do that! Apart from dressing up in a yellow dog costume, they said I would also be playing the piano accordion. So I bluffed my way through the audition and then taught myself how to play the piano accordion just enough to be able to do the 3-month tour! The reason I say that was an incisive moment in my career is not just because it was really good fun, getting to dress up as a yellow dog and do a show for very young children, but also because, although I love the theatre (I worked for the National Youth Music Theatre as well for a while), those three months of Spot the Dog the Musical taught me that although I appreciated it and loved it, I knew that I didn't want to go into the theatre full time. And that was an incisive moment for me because then I began to think, “What are my skills? I love working with children, and I love composing and arranging music”. So, I could have ended up doing the theatre circuit or going into the West End, or being a conductor of a musical and doing eight shows a week. But actually, I'm really glad that I started going into primary schools that didn't have any music, or going and teaching jazz and a cappella vocal singing in independent schools, or conducting youth choirs or, more importantly, writing music for choirs to sing. Brilliant!
Talk to us about your collaboration with Music in Action
I'm lucky enough to have been to Jersey two or three times now. Last year, 2023, was a particular highlight because I got to conduct a mass choir on the beach. And, living in rainy England, as I do, conducting music on a beach isn't something I often get to do. So I love that, and I'm really looking forward to this year's Jersey Sings, which is also going to be on the beach. So, here's hoping for some good weather on Wednesday!
What can we expect from the massed choir performance of Jersey Sings 2024 on 19th June?
There's going be the some lovely songs from the kids, 500 of them, blasting out across the bay in one of the largest choirs ever assembled in Jersey. They're going to be singing a fantastic song called ‘Power in Me’ which has become the Jersey Sings anthem, written by local composer and teacher Rebecca Lawrence. This song is already a classic. We’ll also be having a couple of new songs specially written by Janet Fulton, and buckets and spades will be a huge highlight, I can promise you. If you haven't heard a Bucket and Spade Orchestra before, you've got a treat in store this Wednesday! But then, the centrepiece of our performance will be a piece I've written called ‘Zadok Rules – Hallelujah!’.
We’d love to hear more about your piece ‘Zadok Rules – Hallelujah!’. Do tell… or perhaps, sing!
The piece is a celebration of all the kings and queens that we've had since William the Conqueror, and it's also celebrating royal music and, in particular, the music of Handel, who was a German composer but lived in England. We sort of treat him as one of our own, really. We think of him as a British composer even though he was Georg Friedrich Hӓndel. He wrote some amazing music, including the one that sounds like the Champions League theme music, Zadok the Priest. So, my piece ‘Zadok Rules – Hallelujah!’ has lots of well-known tunes in it.
What do you think is so special about choral music and singing in a large group?
I think it's really important that children are given the gift of singing, the opportunity to sing, preferably with professionals or with expert tuition, with people who can really galvanise them. I'm hoping that Jersey Sings will be a chance for children to benefit from the workshops and resources that have been provided by Music in Action and to work with a professional conductor and workshop leader. I hope they'll really enjoy that, and that'll be something they will remember for the rest of their lives. And, hopefully, even more importantly than remembering it for the rest of their lives, I hope they will be inspired to keep singing, whether it's in a choir when they're older or at secondary school or university. You don't need to purchase an instrument. You just need your voice!
What can we look forward to from you next? Commissions, performances, other projects?
‘Zadok Rules – Hallelujah!’ is an 8-minute piece, which for primary school children to sing off by heart is going to feel big and exciting. But, actually, what I like writing are even bigger pieces. I write 40-minute community choir works, which always have a part for primary school children and a part for an adult choir, an SATB choir. I think it's really important for children to see the adults singing and for the adults to enjoy the sound of the children singing together. So, I've written a few of these pieces that have been performed all around the world. The first one I wrote, back in 2012, was called ‘Zimbe!’ and that's had over 200 performances, including one in Carnegie Hall in New York that I was lucky enough to conduct. So I'm currently working on number six in the series, which is a commission for a school in England called Millfield School, and it's all about water. So, watch this space for the latest in the series…
Which instruments would you wish to be a virtuoso at and why?
Well, maybe one day, I'll actually get round to mastering the piano accordion! Although, if I did, I might still be touring the country as Spot the Dog's dad, and then I wouldn't be writing these pieces and coming to Jersey for Jersey Sings…
Which pianists proved the biggest inspirations for you during the early years of your career?
There are so many pianists who I loved to hear when I was younger. Think about Sviatoslav Richter, Zoltan Kocsis or Mauricio Pollini. There are so many amazing players – think of Martha Agerich or Yuja Wang and how she plays the most difficult things – the list is enormous. And still today I hear young pianists that are truly inspiring. The new pianists are of all types – there are always some distinctive sounds. I am totally confident about the future of music. Things are always changing.
Which film would you have liked to have written the score for and why?
Well, obviously, Harry Potter, not because it's just such an amazing film and the music's brilliant, but also because one of the characters is my evil sister, Bellatrix Lestrange!