Coming to TV soon (and already available on catch-up via BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds), vocal group VOCES8 with Carducci Quartet, harpist Ruby Aspinall and Norwegian pianist, producer and composer Ola Gjeilo for 90 minutes of close harmony singing, improvisation, and minimalist sounds in a an event clearly produced with TV in mind, billed as ‘music for mindfulness’.
This isn’t my go-to kind of event. Regardless of the brand, or the ensemble, the moment I hear someone utter the phrase ‘music for mindfulness’ I do, I’m sorry to say, sense I’m being directed to feel something or am about to receive treatment for some grumbling health condition.
This is in part symptomatic of how the definition of the word mindfulness has been stretched, now encompassing all manner of different aspirations, activities and mind-sets. In some circles it’s used pejoratively, epitomising the opportunism that has emerged in the health and wellbeing sector.
And look, I don’t want to be a pedant, but … musically speaking, I’m not entirely clear how ‘mindful music’ differs from any other kind of music either. Isn’t mindful listening simply being aware of both what we’re hearing around us and how we are reacting to it in the moment? It appears then that semantically music for mindfulness is shorthand for relaxing, soothing, calming or, if prefer the industry terminology, contemporary classical.
I’m not sneering by any means. There is a market for this stuff. Easy to understand signposts direct people to melody, moods and vibes. The language is textures, gentle harmonic progressions, and montages, all adding up to a promise not scare the horses. Do it well (by which I mean package it up right) and you’ve got yourself an experience. At the Royal Albert Hall I saw (all bar an unsurprisingly bare Circle) a respectable looking house for a late night Prom. Like I say, there’s an audience for this.
Decca artists Ola Gjelio, VOCES8, and composer Eric Whitacre whose All Things Seem Beautiful To Me is part of the concert and forms part of his 2023 release ‘Home’) represent the sophisticated end of what is an over-populated genre dominated by angst-ridden melancholy, portentous chord progressions, and wistful dream sequences.
Beware you don’t slip into too much of a mindful state and miss the good material in this under-the-radar Prom. Ola Gjelio’s The Rose is exquisite. The folk song underpinned by live strings and a motoring piano is an uplifting three minutes which could easily have been a wildcard Scandi Eurovision entry from the 1990s. (Listen out for VOCES8 co-founder Barnaby Smith haunting counter-tenor line).
Caroline Shaw’s pastoral And The Swallow takes me right back to the pandemic and hearing Anna Lapwood and the Pembroke College Girls Choir recording on Signum, but here live with the fruitiest of bass lines, a reassuring weight underpins the soaring descant. Radiohead’s Pyramid Song takes on a whole new spiritual feel in the close harmony arrangement, the beat (sometimes difficult to determine in the original track) tapped out resolutely with a whiff of the Souk by Chineke! harpist Ruth Aspinall. Ken Burton’s A Prayer has a gentle pop sensibility to it that deftly avoids mawkish sentimentality.
The world premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s Floral Tribute might have slipped by in the soundscape that remained uninterrupted by applause had it not have been from the four minute’s piece defining text ‘ELIZABETH’ sung out in the middle of the piece – a setting of Poet Laureate Simon Artmitage’s Floral Tribute, written to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The musical language was notably different from everything before it but unexpectedly reassuring with its gentle lilting chords.
I could have done without the rainforest sounds peppered throughout the evening. There were moments when it felt a little like I was in a Disney theme park, truth be told. That said, the triumph here was that the Mindful Mix Prom defied my expectations. A live event that delivered for the audience in the Hall and will, judging by the photography, look good on TV too.
There’s more available from VOCES8 and Ola Gjeilo in the Live from London series, with concerts released online from 12th August. Subscribe here.
