Interview, Errollyn Wallen reflects on her career

A decade on from becoming the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello Award for classical music, Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen has just been named as the 28th Fellow of The Ivors Academy, following in the footsteps of Sir James MacMillan, Judith Weir (Wallen's predecessor as Master of the King's Music), Bruce Springsteen, Joan Armatrading and John Rutter.

At the end of last month, Errollyn spoke to us from North Carolina (where her Violin Concerto was being premiered by Philippe Quint) about her musical childhood in Tottenham, why it took her such a long time to call herself a composer, how relocating to a lighthouse off the coast of Scotland transformed her creative life, and her plans to use her new royal appointment to advocate for better access to music-making for all... 

Photo: Azzurra Primavera

Were you drawn to composition from a very young age?

I was always making up tunes when I was little, but children do that anyway so I didn’t think it was anything special. For example I made up a song for my sister and me to sing as we walked to school - I made up a lot of music to accompany doing boring things!

I can’t overestimate how musical my parents were. There was always lots of different music going on in our family, but I don’t think the idea that any of us would become musicians was ever even thought of. My dad was the family musician: he was a singer-songwriter who made a recording with a band that played the club circuit in Newcastle, which must have been quite a tough environment! 

I was fascinated by composers from an early age; my father sent me an LP set called Lives of the Great Composers geared for children and I absolutely loved it. There were snippets of music by Mozart, Chopin, Bach and the rest, and they told a very engaging potted version of their life-stories.

When I was about nine we had this terrific teacher at my primary school in Tottenham who taught us to read and write music and be appreciative of classical music, but again it just felt natural. I remember composing a piece for all my class to perform in a school concert - it was called 'Frogs and Toads' and was inspired by a poem that we had read in class: I somehow knew what each person in class had to play, and at lunchtime I would go round assigning parts. That must’ve been quite something, but I can’t remember it being remarked upon – I remember I’d asked to write the thing!

You trained as a dancer before studying composition - did the two disciplines inform each other?

People often think that I danced first and composition came later, but they really happened alongside each other. I had violin and piano lessons and dance lessons as a kid, so it was all a part of that. When I was about twelve I felt that I really wanted to go to a specialist ballet school, but my parents said ‘Well, we haven’t seen any Black ballet dancers' so I had to put away that dream.

From the age of 13 to 17 I went to a boarding-school in Sussex which was meant to do a lot of ballet, but it was only half an hour a week - I was heartbroken: I would sit for hours playing the piano just as a way of working through the sadness. When pupils and teachers started taking notice I was a bit taken aback. The piano was just my home, and much as my family loved music they’d never made a fuss of me about it. A teacher there introduced me to Bach and I did all the ABRSM exams; the idea of being a concert-pianist began to grow in my mind, but fate had other plans…

When I left school I blitzed dance training at the Urdang Academy in London and then at the Dance Theater in Harlem: I knew it was too late to have a career in ballet, but I wondered if there might be a place for me in contemporary dance.

So when did writing music become your main focus?

I think it was my history teacher, Mr Black in Sussex who first floated the possibility of me becoming a composer, but because women composers weren’t exactly at the forefront of things back then the idea never stuck. Yet I was always composing. On reflection, playing the piano was always intertwined with composing for me. From the moment I started learning the piano in Tottenham I was a strong sight-reader, so I’d learn my set pieces quickly and then head to the library to find new music to explore. I would pick up whatever scores I could get my hands on - orchestral works, chamber music, operas - then take them to the piano. It was the conduit to a whole other world.

Even once I started studying composition seriously as a postgraduate there still weren’t many women composers being performed. There were only about five people on my course, but two of us have gone on to be professional composers, so that’s something!

I never rebelled violently against that status quo. I just knew that I loved writing music, but the question was how to make a living out of it…You can only hone your craft through having your works played, and so starting out on my true path was a hard journey. But I could always earn money through the piano - playing in care homes, accompanying here and there, performing in bands - and eventually I set up a commercial recording studio.

Then the day came when I thought ‘This is no good - I just have to be composing for what I call ‘no good reason’’. It took ages just to call myself a composer, but once I decided that for myself there was no looking back. 

Did any particular event prompt that breakthrough?

We mainly did commercial music at my studio, but people would also come in and do pre-production stuff. One day this quartet came in to record something for an album with Jimmy Somerville, and I suddenly felt this overwhelming need to write a string quartet myself. They performed it in a concert, and that began my journey in a way; my first-ever commission followed shortly afterwards, from the group Gemini.

You also followed in your dad's footsteps as a singer-songwriter for a while - is that something that's still part of your life? 

I wasn’t even really a singer, but songs just started coming out of me… I thought I could perhaps find a singer to perform them through one of the bands I worked with, but one day someone once asked me if I could play the piano and sing at the same time. I thought that sounded impossible, but it’s actually exactly what I do now (in fact I was doing it right before this call!). That is one of the joys of my life, because it’s totally personal – singing and playing my songs is like being on holiday in music. 

How would you describe your working process?

I really wish I knew! Every time it’s different. The one consistent thing is that I start thinking about a piece from the moment a commission comes in. I think my way of making music is a bit like a sculptor working from a lump of stone. I start with a simple idea (not always a good one!) and try to keep an open mind and think about all the practical considerations: the performers, the brief, what the commissioners have asked for, and where the piece is going to be played.

I don’t depend on ‘inspiration’ in the way that some do – I see myself as a working composer with a specific problem to solve, and my job is to sit patiently, crafting and refining until the piece works. A lot of it comes down to intuition, and when I sit at the piano ideas emerge very quickly: there’s something about putting the physical and mental elements together. It’s a fantastic place to be.

Speaking of fantastic places, how did a lighthouse off the north coast of Scotland become your base?

It’s been an adventure, Scotland! I was looking for somewhere affordable where I could work really intensely without disturbing anyone or being disturbed: when you’re Iiving in a London flat of course there’s a curfew, and I always felt a bit constrained. I was thinking more about budget than location, and one day I stumbled across a website called lightshousesforsale.co.uk…I found this amazing small flat which had been converted from the old engine-room, with incredible panoramic views of the Atlantic. Everybody thought I was nuts to do it, but it changed my life.

This week in North Carolina we played my work Northern Lights, a rare programmatic piece of mine – I had seen the Aurora Borealis from my lighthouse one night and I just had to write something that captured what I saw. 

How are you settling into your new role as Master of the King's Music? 

This is a job which comes with no brief. I’m sure I will write music for royal occasions, but that’s only part of the story: I met the Poet Laureate [Simon Armitage] recently and he occasionally writes verse just for its own sake, so there’s a level of freedom there. My idea is to champion music-making for all, and I’d love to use my position to be more of an advocate - to share the joy of what we have, and also increase opportunities for children. Music was such a natural part of the curriculum when I was growing up, but in some schools today children only sing together once a year - what good is that?!

Things like my little Clocks Challenge last month [when Wallen invited followers on social media platform X to use the extra hour gained when the clocks went back to compose a short piece] is also part of that advocacy. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a piece and hearing it performed, and I’d like as many people as possible to experience that sensation. I think it’s something that’s innate when we’re young, but somehow we get out of the flow of things as we age. Kids are so quick – they paint, they create, they dance, and generally respond immediately to the world around them without being overly critical of the results. If I ever get stuck with a piece, I just think ‘What would Little E do?’. 

Your beautiful carol 'Peace on Earth' has been sung by so many choirs of all ages since it was featured on the Carols from King's broadcast during lockdown - are you working on more choral music?

I find it incredible that it’s reached such a wide audience, because it was a little song for myself to sing that just popped out – I wrote it maybe ten years before the King’s broadcast. I did my MPhil at King’s, and a few years ago I wrote to their label-manager Ben Sheen asking if we might record some of my choral music. Ben suggested that we make an EP of three choral works - 'Peace On Earth', 'See that I am God' and 'Pace' - and that was a gamechanger for me, because the amount of choirs which has now sung them has surpassed my wildest expectations.

This particular excellence in choral training and musicianship is really the bedrock of music education in the UK – so many conductors, singers and even actors started in their church choir. I wrote something for the new Carols for Choirs, and I want to do more choral music because there’s so much you can do with the form.

I’ve written some tricky pieces, but also things like Friday Afternoons: that was a collection of songs for quite young children which I wrote for Aldeburgh, and it includes a song which I wrote when I was nine. I’ve always loved working with music and words – they just seem to belong together. Sometimes I set my own words, sometimes texts by other people.

Which authors and genres particularly draw you?

Sometimes I get given texts that already have famous settings, like A Spotless Rose; I’ve set quite a lot of Shakespeare, and Ted Hughes’s children’s poem The Warm and the Cold. I’ve written 22 operas as well (working on my 23rd), and I love working with living writers: setting Terese Svodoba’s poem Orlando is Us [written in the aftermath of the 2016 nightclub shooting] as gun gun gun for Hermes Experiment was a very moving experience. I’m always mindful of whether a poem lends itself to music or not: some are best left unset, but with others you can bring another dimension to the text. At the moment I’m working with The Chester Mystery Plays for an opera called A Christmas Miracle, which is in the cast of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde: those mediaeval texts are an absolute gift for a composer.

Finally, congratulations on your win at the Classical Ivors! Will you be making a speech at the ceremony next Tuesday?

It means so much to me to receive this honour - but I do still feel strange about winning awards, and I never know quite what to say! Writing music that will work well with different ensembles, orchestras and choirs is just my job, as is getting my music out there for people to hear and perform. 

When I look back on my life so far, I don’t just think ‘Wow, I’ve written a lot of music!’: I give thanks that the music has made so many amazing connections with people. You can’t flourish as a composer without people who look out for you and give you a chance, and I’m very aware of wanting to do that for the next generation.

 In my early days people weren’t always so welcoming, but since I’ve become an established part of this classical music world I’ve received a lot of kindness and feel as if I’m part of a lively international community. It’s like you have this wonderful shorthand way of becoming friends through being engrossed in music, and I would love to help as many people as possible to have access to that family.

Errollyn Wallen will be inducted into Fellowship at The Ivors Classical Awards on 12 November at BFI Southbank. Her book Becoming a Composer was published by Faber last year.

View her complete available discography.