Errollyn Wallen

Errollyn Wallen0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:04

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were castaway to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is Erilyn Wallen. She's the first woman to receive an Ivan Avello Award for classical music and is one of the world's most performed living composers. Her work has been played everywhere, from the 2012 Paralympic Games to the late Queen's Gold and Diamond Jubilees. She's prolific writing symphonies, song cycles, chamber works and 22 operas. And early in her career, she learned to improvise. Following her classical training, she worked as a session musician, even appearing on top of the pops. In 1998, she was the first black woman to have her work performed at the BBC Proms, and in 2020, she reworked Jerusalem for the season's last night. As a little girl growing up in London, she told her uncle Arthur that she had a head full of sounds and didn't know what to do with them. Perhaps, he suggested, you are a composer. She says, the calling to be a musician has been stronger than any other consideration. If, along the way, I've helped to dispel the myth that a composer is only white and male, that can only be a good thing. Erilyn Wallen, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Hello, Lauren. It's so lovely to meet you.

Presenter1:51

So, Eralyn, it all started with the piano for you. How would you describe your relationship with the instrument today?

Presenter1:57

You know, it was on our house from the age of I was about five years old. The piano came into our house because my father was writing songs, had a beautiful voice and he wanted somewhere to compose on. But we weren't sent to pianists until I was about nine years old. But my cousin Stephanie showed me where the notes were. And ever since I started playing it, I would go to bed as a child dreaming of the piano. And I found it very hard to be separated from it. And to me, it was a place of dreams, of discovery and learning. So I would play my, you know, my weekly piano pieces, but I'd learn them very quickly, like in Adeas. So then I would use the piano to look for other music just to play through. And we had a piano stool full of things like wartime tunes and Gracie Fields. And your fingers are going as you talk there. Oh, yes. Do you feel that when you think about it? When you think about playing, do you get that itch? The physicality of it is obviously important. Definitely. I mean, there was a time we would go to New York every summer for six weeks. And my mother told me much later that she actually went to see a doctor to say, is it okay that my daughter's not playing the piano for six weeks because she's becoming very distressed? So it's a tactile thing and it's the way, certainly as a composer, it's like your mind and body are totally connected.

Presenter3:16

And what's your starting point when you're writing? Where do you like to begin and where does your mind take you?

Presenter3:24

I feel I'm an explorer, to be honest. I start pieces anywhere. Sometimes I have a clear inspiration for the feeling of a work or the energy of a work. And then sometimes, particularly if I'm procrastinating, which can be quite a lot, I'll say just wherever your hands hit the keyboard, that is the beginning of the piece. Well, I think we're going to treat listeners to your music today. Let's get started, Evelyn, with your first disc. I mean, I can imagine choosing your final eight has been quite a task. It has been.

Presenter3:56

And in the end I I thought of the works that when I came across them.

Presenter4:01

It's as if my life changed, the sun came out and I became so obsessed. And what's sad in a way about being a composer, now when I listen to music, I think, now how does it work? Oh, duh duh I'm trying to think how could it be a professional headache. I know, and as a child you just you just soak it all

Errollyn Wallen4:12

Crazy.

Presenter4:17

N

Presenter4:18

So tell me about this first piece. Yes, this is the fourth movement from Beethoven's Symphony No. seven. The thing about it is it's a recording which I probably would have heard conducted by Andrea Previn. When I heard this symphony I was not sideways and I was at my boarding school.

Presenter4:34

Say thirteen, and other kids were listening to Donnie Osbund and Jackson Five, and I would go to bed with a scissette player underneath my pillow and just play it again and again, the energy, the life in it. And then, because I was a bit obsessed with Andre Preven, my friend Bobby Norkey somehow got tickets for us to go to the World Festival Hall. And somehow he got that stage, and somehow I met Andre Preven. And Bobby says, My friend really, I couldn't speak, she says, Erin and really, really loves you. What was he like? What did he say? He looked actually quite disinterested, but he was my pin-up.

Presenter6:10

Part of the fourth movement from Beethoven's Symphony No. seven, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrei Previn. Eriline Wallen You were born in Belize in nineteen fifty eight, and apparently music had taken hold of you before you could even walk.

Presenter6:25

What was the family story? Um my mum and dad extremely musical people. In old age they would jump up and dance to any bit of music they liked. It just consumed the music, the love of music. And you said your dad was a singer. He had a beautiful voice because he made a couple of records. He really did. When I was about four or five he came home one day with this these discs that he'd made and he was working in northern clubs in Newcastle as a singer in a glittery jacket. He had his own band and everything and he had this crooning voice and he was always studying singers to the point where I never thought I'd be a musician because I felt dad was music. But you had been musical from when you were tiny. Yes. So dad told me that mum and dad told me that

Errollyn Wallen6:36

Um

Errollyn Wallen6:39

Yeah.

Errollyn Wallen6:51

And he had

Errollyn Wallen6:58

But you

Presenter7:04

I would never cry. When I woke up ahead of them as a baby, I'd just be singing. And one day they came and said, I would have been between somewhere between one and two. I was singing, When I Fall in Love, It Will Be Forever. I don't know how they would have recognised those intervals because they're tricky. So I was always probably, you know, a thing I still do today. I sing little intervals, and that probably started as a child, as a baby. So your parents, Henry and Barbara, they came to the UK when you were two and the family ended up living in Tottenham, London with your father's brother, Arthur, and his wife, Reni. What memories do you have of your dad from your early childhood? Quite hazy. He was away a lot of the time. He was studying agriculture and then design. And then he went away to study. He got a scholarship study in Trinidad. I was never clear exactly what he was studying. And so my mother was, when she came to England, she really wanted to get her state registered nursing qualifications. And so she was studying for those. But she was very asthmatic, so was often ill. So to begin with, we were living separately, my uncle and aunt, and then mum and dad. But from the moment I met my uncle and aunt, when they first babysat, I did actually love them more. And eventually we all lived together. And then dad first went to the States, then my mother follows. So by the time I was about six, seven, they were both gone, I would have said. So you didn't have that very connected intimacy with your mother at that time when you were a little girl?

Presenter8:34

Not really. Well, up until the age of about six or seven, my mother was never a motherly mother and it was all it was as if my aunt Keen, I called her her name's Reenie, she was always stepping in the breach, being the mother. She actually belongs to the whole mother for the

Errollyn Wallen8:46

She I

Presenter8:48

Whole extended Walland family. Somehow my mother was this invalid figure that my aunt was always saying, you know, your mother's not very well. Um but yes, my mother was fun loving, um life and soul of everything, but at the same time something was up with her. Fragile. Yes.

Presenter9:03

So in nineteen sixty four, you would have been about six, Eriline. That was when your parents moved to New York. Why did they go and and what did you know about what was happening? They were going to New York where our extended family are, and particularly my my grandmother, my mother's mother, was there. And the idea was that we would be sent for.

Presenter9:21

So there was this plan, but as time went by, you know, nothing was really happening. And eventually, from the age of sort of maybe 11, 12, we started going.

Presenter9:30

To New York for summers. How much contact did you have with him? Was it an annual trip? That was it? Do you know there's at one point I think I actually didn't see my dad for something like six years, but I just can't say how much my uncle and aunt were like our parents and we wanted to call them mum and dad, but we couldn't. So my mum and dad were like this hovering presents who lived in this very glamourous place, New York, and they would send us clackerjack back and fantastic dresses. Did you miss them? Yes, I did. And I remember not long after my mother had gone, I came home from school one day. I was the eldest, and I

Presenter10:06

said to my aunt, I think I'll write my mum and dad a letter,'cause I really, really miss them and she said, No, don't do that and that's when I knew there was a pull between the adults. You see, my uncle and aunt were sort of

Presenter10:19

They lived in absolute fear of us being taken away from them. So we had to live with that. Did you you you were aware of that as a girl? You couldn't even have a cold, you couldn't fall down because they're they're terrified that

Speaker 310:26

So

Presenter10:31

that our parents would think we weren't being looked after. They're terrified that the authorities would take us away. So you couldn't if you got ill, you had to keep you had to keep. So I got pneumonia when I was four. My my aunt spent the whole time saying to me, You know, you weren't really ill, Erin. You but I think I was in hospital for ten.

Errollyn Wallen10:39

I've got the murderer

Presenter10:46

So in the end, I think there were four of you in London, is that right? Because your mother came back to London in 1969 to have your brother Byron. But then once he was weaned, she left him behind with you and your sisters too. I mean, that's quite a decision. It is. And my godmother, Catherine, evidently said to my mother, please, Babs, you know, Barbara, please know what it's like to bring up a child. But it was a plan. They planned it together. My aunt said, Yes, you know, we'll have the baby and we'll all

Presenter11:24

And it did cause tensions great tensions in the end between my, you know, Arthur and Reenie.

Presenter11:30

What kind of impact do you think your parents leaving had on you and how do you think it shaped you looking back? I had to explain things to my younger sisters, Karen and Judith, and I was very entertaining. Like I was explaining, we're so lucky we have two sets of parents, but after a while you do realise that your parents, you know, they're not at your school concerts, they don't really know anything about you. What I know about my mum and dad, their focus was definitely on each other. That's just how it was. And that practically speaking, to be brought up by Arthur and Reni was by far the best thing. But it's just there was always these questions that were never answered. That is a lot to manage on a day-to-day basis. And I'm wondering whether there was a sense that when you were playing music, that was a place of freedom where you didn't have to deal with all of that. Yes, there was something about me as a child. When I look back, I was just...

Presenter12:23

Quickly at school I seemed to switch off. By the time I was ten, eleven I I wasn't doing homework. I was reading voraciously. I would read walking on the street. Reading or playing the piano. I needed to be in a space where I could just be absorbed.

Presenter12:37

Well, let's hear some music, Erroline. It's disc number two. What have you chosen? To be honest, Ella Fitzgerald, I consider her a composer. I I don't have the words to describe. She's beyond a singer, beyond a musician. The fact that she lived and walked on this earth is incredible to me.

Errollyn Wallen12:53

I'm wild again.

Errollyn Wallen12:57

Beguiled again.

Errollyn Wallen13:01

A simpering, whimpering child again

Presenter13:07

Yeah.

Presenter13:08

Bewatched.

Presenter13:10

Bothered and bewildered.

Presenter13:15

And

Presenter13:22

Ella Fitzgerald and Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. Erilyn Morland, you once said, I'll always know that the people who gave me life were of the opinion that I wasn't worth coming back for. That's such a difficult sentence to hear. Have you been able to make peace with your parents' choice?

Presenter13:43

The thing is, I absolutely love my m mother and father. I love them un you know, unconditionally, and every child does. And particularly in the their later years, I would be in New York often. And, you know, the strange thing would happen, especially when I was there, which told me that I was their first child.

Presenter14:00

I'd wake up in the morning, really quite early, and I'd just jump into bed with them, and they would sort of make room for me. We loved each other. It's that simple. But let's say there were a few flaws in their parenting.

Errollyn Wallen14:06

It's that

Presenter14:11

But you were able to get to a better place. I still feel angry with them because I think to be brought up in that amount of confusion is not fair to a child.

Presenter14:20

But it was your Uncle Arthur and your Aunt Renie who brought you and your siblings up. That relationship, I think, in itself was complicated. How do you look back at it now?

Presenter14:31

With gratitude, to be honest, because there were many difficult things we brought up in a very Victorian way. Everybody was scared of my my uncle Arthur.

Presenter14:39

But he did instil something in me. He had this great pride and this great belief in the arts and in culture. And it was him that taught us all to love poetry. It was him that said we should go to piano lessons. Him that gave us elocution lessons, which is why I speak like this. And he was looking out for us, except that as little kids we were just scared of him. There was always that overhanging threat of actual physical punch, which really happened maybe twice, but

Errollyn Wallen14:57

Uh

Presenter15:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter15:11

And and what about Renee? So she had a different background. She was from the East End.

Presenter15:16

Yes, she was born in Bethnal Green, Cockney, and every Sunday she'd send out for Cockles, you know, Welks, mussels from the pub up the road. So she kept her Cockney ways. So what was the cultural blend like in the house then? Mealtimes signifies everything. So you'd have a roast dinner, but you'd have rice with it and rice and beans. So so Rainy was white and she and Arthur got together at a time when interracial couples, you know, often faced abuse. Did they? Did they talk to you about that? Yes, my aunt's mother refused to come to their wedding and she said that when they were courting people would spit at them in the streets. And so when I think of my aunt taking us kids around, people always commenting on it. So she would have really stuck out and

Speaker 315:34

So

Presenter15:58

She was extraordinary really in what she did in embracing of Billy's culture. And she adored m my uncle, even even though he he was quite a remote character, but he was I think he'd been that way since he was young, to be honest, very internal. I think he wanted to be a writer. He wrote reams of poetry. And, you know, then he found himself looking after four children and very little time for himself.

Presenter16:22

But he must have been very proud of you. I mean, and he was the person who said to you that you might be a composer. Yes, which is astonishing for him to know anything. It's a big thing to say at that time. I think he might be. I remember saying, Cliff, there are these sounds, and I just don't know what to do with them. They were tormenting me. I was going crazy. I know that sound now. It was a sound of strings and electronics. So you were imagining this? Yes. And he said, oh, I think you might be a composer. And I was always writing little tunes, but, you know, no fuss. But he said that, and I was thinking, you're very...

Errollyn Wallen16:30

That time.

Errollyn Wallen16:41

So you're imagining this? Yeah.

Presenter16:51

Perspicacious. And what was your relationship with Renee like? You had that sense that she could look after you, she could take care of you. How would you describe the relationship between the two of you? Very close. I was so attached to her, and she was attached to me. And the heartbreaking thing is that as I got older, she thought I was leaving her. I could never leave her. So childhood was fantastic, but the moment I sort of hit puberty, you know, life was very difficult with her. She grew very resentful of me, sadly. Do you think she was scared about losing you? Yes, yes.

Errollyn Wallen17:17

Does she think she

Presenter17:24

Let's take a break for some music, Erolyn. It's your third disc today. What's next?

Presenter17:29

Well, I adore Stravinsky and I thought I'd take the Firebird, the first ballet that Stravinsky did. I remember going with my good friend David Matthews, composer, to the ballet was on at Opera House and we had tickets to see Firebird, Les Noss, and there's another ballet I can't remember. But anyway, we were sitting in our seats and you know, the ballet was about to start and then somebody came and said to us, Oh, you're sitting in the wrong row. So I said, it's okay, I'll climb in front. And I did, I was wearing a short skirt. You climbed over. You didn't go out. No, I climbed. And then d sorts. And I'm trapped between two seats.

Presenter18:10

So whenever I hear the opening, I feel really embarrassed.

Presenter19:14

Part of the opening of Stravinsky's The Firebird, performed by the Bergen Philharmonic, conducted by Andrew Lytton. So that is taken from a ballet, and as a little girl, you dreamed of being a professional ballet dancer. Why did you want to do that so badly? Oh goodness, I just love the shapes. I'd spend hours with my friend Janice Kent pouring over ballet books. There was a day, you know, when in the ballet class we used to have a terrible pianist called Miss E, who was deaf, so she would never know when to stop at the end of exercise and she would be thumping out the piano. Then this one day, this other day.

Presenter19:49

A pianist came in.

Presenter19:51

She played some chopin for the ballet class and I thought, Oh, oh you know, I was hyperventilating, what is this music? And we were dancing to the chopin and that was the moment I thought I need to go home and find this again on the radio. I became desperate and I said to my uncle and aunt, You know, when I was twelve I said, Look, it's getting late to me to go to specialist school. I'd worked it all out. I knew where I wanted to go.

Presenter20:14

and I need to go to a school where they predominantly do ballet, a bit of school on the side. And they said, No, we've never seen a black ballet dancer, and we don't want you to be disappointed. I was so heartbroken, I can't tell you that was and so, you see, then I turned to the piano.

Presenter20:29

Because you were so heartbroken. So heartbroken. When you were 13, your family scraped enough money together to send you to a private boarding school in East Sussex. This is Hollington Park School for Girls. And the teachers there spotted your potential. By the sounds of it, they gave you completely free rein to pursue your interests. They said, okay, you can give up geography, biology. I did no homework at all. I read books. I was a shy, nerdy little thing. But without knowing it, I was so fascinated with how music was made, and there was so much to learn. You just couldn't resist it. It was a treasure trove to me. How did that feel, though, Erilyn? Because, you know, from what you were saying about life at home, that was all a little bit complicated. And you were kind of skating on thin ice. Free. Absolutely free. But the thing is, I was always working hard, reading, looking at scores, learning about composers. And in a way, I was amassing my own sort of beliefs about music. I came into my own at that school. So your music was developing, and that side of life was going very well.

Errollyn Wallen20:29

Yeah.

Errollyn Wallen21:02

Yeah.

Errollyn Wallen21:05

I'm not sure

Errollyn Wallen21:11

And you were kind of skating

Presenter21:32

But I know that while you were there you also developed what we would think of as disordered eating these days. What was going on? What happened was the first term I put on a lot of weight because they were eating stodge, you know, semolina as an extra and just loads of potato mash. So I put on £10 and I think the next term I came up with an idea at four o'clock we would get a cake to eat and I thought I really like cakes. So the way to lose weight is just to concentrate on things you like eating and just cut out everything else. So I so cake first. Yeah so I ate maybe one cake a day. Anyway so I started to lose weight and other girls said oh you've lost weight. What diet are you on? So I pretended I was on a really healthy diet so I said the first thing you must do is give up cakes and when it's your lunch time or dinner time come and see me and I'll give you my vegetables. You'll be having lots of vegetables. But you must give me your cake at tea time. So I'd have about four or five cakes at tea time just give them my food the rest of the time. So it didn't feel like an eating disorder but um and also I would regularly sort of just fast you know for days at a time. So you were skipping meals or eating

Errollyn Wallen22:05

Yeah.

Presenter22:40

Unrestricted amounts of cake. Four, usually four a day. But the thing is, it was to do also with this developing a sort of discipline and willpower. Yeah, I mean it's interesting'cause you you know you used the word discipline but I think you could also think about the word control couldn't you? Yes, I think you could. I was always trying to push myself yeah. But this the thing about the cake diet it actually went on well into my twenties. Yeah, well how do you look back at that now?

Errollyn Wallen23:06

Yeah.

Presenter23:08

I was ever anorexic, but then I started to eat more normally. So, was it just as life was changing? I think so. I suddenly thought, well, maybe you ought to.

Speaker 323:12

Be sorry.

Errollyn Wallen23:13

I think

Presenter23:17

Eat proper food. I love vegetables and I, yeah, I do eat more, but I have this terrible sweet tooth which I always have to keep in check.

Presenter23:24

It's time for disc number four, Eralyn. What are you taking next and why?

Presenter23:28

I am going to be taking I am sitting in a room by Alvin Lussier. I adored Alvin Lussier. I met him at the Minds Festival in

Presenter23:38

in San Francisco in nineteen ninety nine. Alvin was a great American experimental composer. He died just a few years ago.

Presenter23:46

And he was very interested in in the acoustics and space and what you could use sound, what you could get out of them. So he's I think Alvin has changed my life because I never go into a room now without thinking what would Alvin do with this room, what sound frequency do you get from it? And the thing about I'm sitting in a room is that Alvin, who had a stutter, he records himself and then he plays the tape recording back into the room.

Presenter24:13

re-recording it and then that's repeated till in the end we get the sound and frequencies of the room, including picky up on his stutter. He's just this magician and I really miss him.

Errollyn Wallen24:25

I am recording the sound of my speaking voice.

Errollyn Wallen24:30

And I am going to play it back into the room again and again.

Errollyn Wallen24:36

until the resonant frequencies of the Rome reinforce themselves

Errollyn Wallen24:43

So that any semblance of my speech

Errollyn Wallen24:47

With perhaps the exception of rho rhythm.

Errollyn Wallen24:54

is destroyed.

Presenter24:56

Alvin Lussier, I am sitting in a room.

Presenter25:00

Erilyn Wallen, when you were seventeen you left your boarding school and went back to live with your aunt and uncle in Tottenham. You had been very happy at school and felt free there. What made you decide to leave?

Presenter25:11

I didn't know what it was, but I had this incredible wave of depression. I didn't know it was that, but one day I remember thinking, I think I'll either have to stay in bed forever or leave the school. You know, I'm like that. I've got these ideas in my head, and that's it. And so I said, I'm going to run away. And then began my life at home again, which was the worst decision I could have made. And what was also more complicated is that the A-levels I was doing, there was no, well, my uncle and aunt couldn't find a school that did the syllabus I was doing. I'd already done a year of it. So I had tutors and my music A-level I actually did my correspondence course. So I was actually cut off from literally at home all the time. Yeah, and I just was turned into this sort of.

Errollyn Wallen25:48

I had no sense.

Errollyn Wallen25:50

Yeah.

Presenter25:54

blob really at home and it was awful. What about life at home and your aunt and uncle's relationship? What was happening there? Well, they were sort of going through what would eventually lead to a divorce. My my uncle didn't want to be at home any more. You know, he'd met somebody else. But for four years we all knew something was happened and he was very secretive and

Presenter26:16

My aunt has having a terrible effect on my aunt's own mental health. What happened to her?

Presenter26:22

She was tormented and she yeah, she wasn't that easy to live with and my brother was still small and was at home. But it was the wrong place for me to be because I was no friends around. So you didn't have the support of your peer group, friends at school. You're halfway through your A levels and making do with these tutors and then dealing with depression as well. What kind of effect did did all of that have on you? Well I didn't know it was depression but I was finding it harder and harder to do simple things and when I reached the point I was finding it hard to compose a play.

Errollyn Wallen26:30

Yeah, so far

Presenter26:51

I was really alarmed because thinking that's my life and I quite rationally thought well if this is how you're going to be living you are a complete waste of space and it's time to stop life really and I was very calm but I was I just thought I didn't belong here anymore because I couldn't do the things that I felt I should be doing and so I took as many tablets as I could and then that didn't work so then I went downstairs found some alcohol I had wanted to die but when it didn't work it was as if you know I went to the hospital was asked if I heard voices I didn't and that was the end of that so no support no follow-up for no and and when I think back now you know my family didn't really mention it my aunt said you know she was cross with me and she was saying if you'd done this a few years ago it was a prisonable you know I could have ended up in prison but there was no no discussion about what was wrong but what happened was I thought about the things I wanted to do and they were to go back to dancing and I enrolled with the Leonie Erdang school with a view to being in contemporary dance. So you decided that if you were going to live then you had to start dancing again? I had to start doing the things that I really wanted to do and all the things that were buried. I'm a person, honestly, if there's something I want to do and I don't do it, I find it impossible to live. So that's what stayed in me. So you found a dance school, was it in Golders Green? Oh it's a wonderful Leonie Erdang, she was a wonderful teacher and then I went to the Dance City of Harlem. They had several summer schools.

Errollyn Wallen28:11

To live.

Errollyn Wallen28:13

Principle.

Presenter28:23

And the thing about the dances of Harlem.

Presenter28:26

was predominantly black dancers. And I thought, Oh, my God, this is four, five years later, there are black ballet dancers just because my uncle and aunt didn't know about them, they're there and I went to study there. Did that depression ever recur?

Speaker 328:33

Mm-hmm.

Errollyn Wallen28:33

Uh

Presenter28:39

I don't ever think I'll sink so low, and I I know now the signs. I now know if anything goes wrong I can fix it or I can have an outlook. I can get through f anything now, really. But then I didn't know you could get through that.

Presenter28:52

I think we should hear your fifth disc next. Oh, my goodness me. So this is the second movement from Bach's double violin concerto in D minor.

Presenter29:02

And it's performed by Isaac Stern and Itza Perlman. And, you know, violins don't play the way Isaac Stern and It's at Perlman play, but I love that style, you know, full fat vibrato. And the other thing about it, recently my violin concerto was premiere, the youth premiere was with um Kansas City Symphony Orchestra and Michael Stern.

Presenter29:23

The son of Isaac Stern is a music director who was partly responsible for my own finding. I would never have foreseen that when I was listening to this recording as a teenager.

Presenter30:32

Part of the second movement from Bach's double violin concerto in D minor, performed by Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Zubin Mehta. Erilyn Wallen, you found your way back to dance in your teens and you also found your way to music, studying at Goldsmith's College, University of London, and then later for a master's in composition at King's College. You were an early adopter of the Yamaha DX7 digital synthesiser, and after you graduated, you started playing in bands to earn some money. How did that go? My first proper band was a band called Pulse. We were on the alternative comedy scene, and it took a year for me to realize that actually I never did play that keyboard, I was put on the Glockenspiel. Somebody else played that.

Presenter31:16

You got a degree in a masters and then got you on the Glock and sh Also, I had a diploma in p piano. I was really good, but nobody knew I could even actually play. And so I was also being told off for not playing the Gokensprill correctly. And then one day I thought, Yeah, because I don't play the And um a day came evidently when I had to quickly accompany something with something. I thought, Oh my God, Erin Mona can play the piano.

Presenter31:38

But I love being in that group. And you know, having to earn a living, I played in care homes, I played in heavy metal bands, reggae bands, jazz bands, anything. Bands on their way to being signed.

Presenter31:49

Bands on the way to being dropped, bands on tour,

Presenter31:53

A few stadiums here and there. So you learned a lot of you'd have you'd have to be very versatile. You must have learned a lot during that period. Amazing. I learnt so much about music and how it's made and the different

Speaker 331:54

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 331:56

It doesn't be very

Presenter32:03

You know, the freedom, the enjoyment, the dressing up, the lights, the dry eyes. Yes, there was a lot of P V C back then. I've looked back at some some performances from back in the day. P V C and a bit of Animal Print.

Errollyn Wallen32:09

Some projects.

Presenter32:13

So you're earning money by doing session work.

Speaker 232:13

That's

Presenter32:18

And also trying to find your way into the classical world. I wanted to be a composer, but I had absolutely no idea how you could break in. And I know you had a conversation with Michael Viner, the musical director of the London Sinfonietta, who was quite dismissive of your aspirations at the time. What did he say?

Presenter32:35

At that time there weren't many women composers being promoted and Michael Vineyard was then I shouldn't speak badly of him, but the prevailing attitude was that

Presenter32:45

Women weren't to be taken seriously. And he said, Oh, come up to my office and we'll have a good laugh over your school So um but how did that how did that land with you? Because you're working so hard to get there and you're in love with this music. That must have been really difficult to hear. And we were told it was we were told that you know that in those days

Errollyn Wallen32:52

Uh

Speaker 332:59

Sipping

Speaker 333:00

They're here.

Errollyn Wallen33:00

Yeah.

Presenter33:04

you had to be sort of chosen by somebody and only it's like felt like only two or three people could slip through if they were anointed from on high. And a few points along the road people have said to me, you know, you don't really belong it's like a conductor.

Presenter33:17

you know, who's quite a champion of music, said to me, you know, you know you're a novelty and I hope you've got a good pension because, you know, things won't last. How close did you come to giving up, Eralyn? There were a lot of doors closed on you at that point. There was a moment in my thirties where I remember thinking life was really, really hard, no doors were opening.

Presenter33:35

And I thought, just be realistic, go away for. I actually spoke to myself and says, go away for a few days.

Presenter33:42

And come back with your decision. This is me talking to myself. And I actually did, and I went away.

Presenter33:48

And, you know, once about

Presenter33:49

My life, and I came back to myself and I said, E, I'm gonna do this.

Presenter33:56

And where did that tenacity come from in you, do you think? I don't know if it I call it tenacity. There's always been this sort of fire and a burning. And music gives me that fire, but there was this burning. I thought I just like when I was nine, there was sounds I had to get out. And there's just this sense of also wanting to fulfil a potential I saw in myself. I didn't know it was going to lead, but I thought if I don't go for it

Presenter34:21

I'll never know. But did you spend much time thinking about why the conventional attitudes were as they were and and why they were rejecting you?

Presenter34:31

I decided early on, and maybe it's to do with being brought up by a white woman, a mixed household.

Presenter34:38

I never looked for discrimination. I'm sure it was there, but I I've always been good at circumventing things. I think if the if a door's close to me, I will then make a door that I can open.

Presenter34:48

You talked about choosing not to see barriers and that was very much at the heart of a project that you started in 1990. Ensemble X, you started it with your friends to showcase your own music. And that was kind of your philosophy, wasn't it? It was your manifesto almost. Yeah, we don't break down barriers in music, we don't see any. So those genre barriers almost breaking down a little bit.

Errollyn Wallen35:03

Dazzy

Errollyn Wallen35:07

Yeah.

Presenter35:08

And the the more music I started to write, I noticed that I I was influenced by pop music, without actually having studied it very deeply, but I felt why shouldn't the music a composer writes be of their time? Why does it have to sound as if it's been made in Germany in 1908? That's nutty.

Presenter35:28

I think we better have another track.

Presenter35:31

I don't know how to say this, but I'm obsessed with Signed Seal Delivered, I'm Yours by Stevie Wonder. It's this recording on the Tannamotown label that

Presenter35:40

changed the quality of my driving from Inverness Airport to Stratty Point Lighthouse because the way the drum is Bob Babbitt on on bass, but the way the it it sounds so simple, but the way everything comes in, I think it's one of the sexiest songs ever written. And

Presenter35:57

I just play it on loop. So, this is when you're driving to the lighthouse where you're going to be. Three and a half hour drive. I'll be playing it non-stop. And that's where you live and work quite a lot of the time. Yes, it is.

Speaker 236:01

Pre-Argus

Speaker 236:08

A full three hours of this would be very welcome.

Errollyn Wallen36:11

Like a fool, I wanna stay too long

Errollyn Wallen36:15

I'm wondering if your love's still strong, too baby.

Errollyn Wallen36:20

Here I am, spilt seal delivered of your

Errollyn Wallen36:28

Then that time I went and said goodbye

Errollyn Wallen36:33

Now I'm back and not ashamed to cry. Ooh, baby.

Errollyn Wallen36:38

Here I am, I'm still deliver

Speaker 336:42

Harilyn Wallen begging me to play that again already.

Presenter36:44

But he's just lost in that. The musicianship, the arranging. Stevie Wanda is the the genius in our midst, you know. I put him.

Speaker 336:45

Oxidina.

Presenter36:54

Pretty close to bark.

Presenter36:56

Erilyn Wallen, in twenty twenty you were commissioned to reimagine Jerusalem for the BBC's Last Night of the Proms. It was sung by the South African soprano Gulda Schultz. What did you want to reflect in your new version?

Presenter37:08

Yes, well I was asked actually just three weeks before the last night of the proms and it was during lockdown. So those proms were all took place in Albert Hall but with no audience. And before that, you know, with the ever-changing regulations, all the orchestras had to be sort of half, quarter the sizes, so the orchestra had to be stripped way back. So I was really being asked to write a slimmed down version, but me being me, I understood when they said, oh, your own reimagining. I went to town with that and I thought, right, I will go back to the poem William Blake and try and get a bit closer to the questioning, the darkness of that poem. You know, I grew up playing Jerusalem, I would play for the hymns for high school, so I love that hymn. But I just thought it was an opportunity to weave in something contemporary and really come from the point of view of the words, the meaning. So there's something a little bit disquieting in there that you wanted to explore that perhaps gets lost in the middle of the Parry, which of course I love and understand. Anyway, I wanted to dedicate this work is did here to the Windrush generation and also the fact that it's little understood that in the colonies de facto we live with the music of of England. And so in Belize all these hymns are our hymns. And so I also put a little

Errollyn Wallen38:01

You want the tool?

Errollyn Wallen38:04

Yeah

Speaker 238:06

Yeah.

Errollyn Wallen38:06

You but Parry.

Presenter38:27

I added an extra sentence mentioning that we, the Commonwealth people, we sing with you. There was nothing controversial, I didn't think about what I was doing, but certainly it seemed to cause a bit of fury. A lot of it amplified on social media. How did you respond to that? Because by the sound of it, you weren't expecting it. I was really shocked at the tarade and it became a target for something, which I thought overshadowing the fact that the BBC were working so hard to produce a palms, it was almost impossible for the delight of all of us. I spent the next day, Sunday, just going through deleting, deleting, deleting, hundreds and hundreds of messages, very abusive, thinking, well, actually, when was the last time somebody really talked about a new piece of music?

Presenter39:12

in the National Thest, so yeah, I'll take it. I'm proud of that piece of music. It it it all I did was put an introduction that that was very delicate, and then we moved by the end into the rousing, recognizable thing of Jerusalem. And the other thing is that Jerusalem has had so many reimaginings, hundreds of them.

Presenter39:31

You said that a lot of the the messages were abusive. So how how do you deal with that? I think, you know, before The Last Night was broadcast, somebody actually wrote on Facebook, they said, What does the black woman know about Jerusalem? And that's when I thought

Presenter39:47

They don't realize this song belongs to us. It belongs to all the Commonwealth because that's what we've grown up singing. It's everybody's so I I hadn't realized there was a problem with there's certain sacred things that no black person must touch. I as a composer

Presenter40:01

I feel like music is belongs to everyone, it always has done.

Presenter40:06

Eralyn, as we've discussed, you know, your work can be political. You composed Our English Arts about the Battle of Trafalgar, and that referenced colonialism and empire. You also worked on Carbon Twelve, a choral symphony, which tells the story of coal mining in Wales.

Presenter40:20

Do you feel you have a personal responsibility to highlight some of these moments for our collective history, to to articulate our collective history in that way? Yes, I feel I should be telling the stories of our time. Not to say that I don't feel very connected to centuries past. You know, I'm very connected to the tradition of classical music and I revere Vivaldi, Bachelor.

Presenter40:43

Beethoven, Mozart, but I live here now in my environment, and their music is this incredible

Presenter40:50

Force of energy and love. And, you know, we I feel as a Kamos I have a responsibility to other people.

Presenter40:58

Classical music is is facing many challenges at the moment, funding cuts, a need to broaden its audiences. If you were in charge, what would you do? Well, the fir the first place I would start, the only reason I can sit here and talk to you is because at school we had free

Presenter41:16

It makes me quiet I think we had free music lessons. We had a fantastic music teacher.

Presenter41:21

who taught us all in Tottenham, nine years old, to read and write music and to love orchestral music. You know, we grew up with music, it was part of the fabric of school life and you'd play in your local orchestra terribly of course, but everybody would play. There wasn't this hierarchy. My absolute abject despair is that soon it will only be people with money who will be playing classical music. Now this music was created by people from all was never created by super wealthy people. It was made, you know, people who were part of a trade. That's who composers were. And people who had something to say and had a great talent to share. I don't know how we got to this point where it's perceived as this elite thing just for some people because all the musicians I work with, they are so dedicated and just in love with the passion that music gives us all. What gives you hope for the future?

Presenter42:12

I have to do what I can, and the whole it's the culture we've got to create of not being suspicious of things that are really good for us. Erilyn, it's time for disc number seven. What have you gone for? Your penultimate choice today? This song, What's Up Doc? is probably the first song I ever wrote. I sat down at the piano, just rolled out. And what's special to me about this is it's the recording of it. It was one of the first sort of recordings I ever made with Tim Harris on bass and Simon Pearson, a wonderful drummer who I only just

Presenter42:44

Recently Heard died last year in his early fifties.

Presenter42:48

There's nothing he couldn't play and this little song has got these tricksy little rhythms and it brings back those memories too, but also the days of making an album.

Presenter42:57

Which actually is yet to be probably released of where I wanted to make music which you can say is inspired by pop but in a chamber music way where you're playing without the click track with musicians who you love and just the joy of songwriting really.

Presenter43:24

What's up?

Presenter43:27

Is it the words is the other way you see it? Sometimes it gets so cold that I hug the television. Sometimes it gets so crazy that I hug the television. What's up, Duck?

Presenter43:42

What's up to

Presenter43:45

An early song of yours, Erilyn Wallen. What's up, Doc? Erilyn, you once said that for music I've made myself lonely and it has eaten me alive. That's a visceral statement. What was on your mind? You know, there's a certain solitude.

Errollyn Wallen43:56

Who is when you said it?

Presenter44:01

You have to have us compose, and there's certain times

Presenter44:03

You know, nobody can help you and it really is it can be tricky psychologically until you learn to accept it. But the payback is like thousandfold because then you're work if you're lucky enough to have your work performed, that's the thing I live for, you know, whether it's a small rehearsal, a huge concert, but it comes from a place of um

Presenter44:24

Solitude and quiet.

Presenter44:26

But that requirement for solitude, difficult to to balance with the quite a conventional personal life. Have have relationships suffered because of your work, do you think? I I think so. I don't mean to shut people out, but I've been in relationships where

Presenter44:41

I remember going up to somebody who said, you know, you need taking down a peg or two and I didn't unstump them at In other words, I really enjoy what I'm doing, just like so happy doing it, and sometimes people might feel a little bit left out, but

Presenter44:52

It's all been worth it. Did you ever have a relationship with someone who really got it?

Speaker 344:53

Did you

Presenter44:58

Yes, um, somebody very important to me, Lori Allen, and he loved music and he himself wrote tremendous songs. He worked at National Theatre as musician, and he just really he had this sense of what the music I could write.

Presenter45:14

how I would do it. And, um, sadly when I met him, you know, he had multiple sclerosis.

Presenter45:20

and he went downhill. I would do anything I could to keep him well, and it didn't work.

Presenter45:29

his love of music, um, in in a in a way he became like a muse to me. So songs like Rain and

Presenter45:36

He's beloved to me, so he's still in your work now.

Presenter45:43

Eralyn, you've previously mentioned the lighthouse at Strathy Point in the north of Scotland. How does living and working there inspire you?

Presenter45:52

I have panoramic views of the Atlantic and when the storms come in it's absolutely crazy. But it's I found great peace and I think it's totally increased my productivity. And I'm you know I'm in London, I love London, I love the bustle of the city, but certainly looking at this vast panorama, looking to sky and sea, I'm very, very happy composing.

Presenter46:15

So, how will you be with the isolation on your island? I'm used to it.

Presenter46:19

I will miss people. I have so many beloved people in my life.

Presenter46:23

But I will remember them all in my music. I'll write them all. I love writing music thinking of other people, so that's what I will continue to do. I'll listen to these tracks and really try and study them and really get to know them.

Presenter46:36

One more disc before we cast you away, Erilyn Wolin. What's it going to be? Benjamin Britton is a hero of mine, and I would say his opera Peter Grimes is still to me something to aim for in operatic writing of any time. Every note in it feels necessary, and with my friend Nick Mercer, we went to see a concert version of it. It was Edward Gardner.

Presenter47:02

We loved it so much because well, it made me realize that in this score you don't need sets, you don't need lighting, you don't need costumes, everything is there in this music.

Presenter47:12

It's an incredible score. If I could even oh, you know, I've written twenty-two operas, I've not written a Peter Grimes, it's it's fabulous.

Presenter48:21

An extract from Peter Grimes, composed by Benjamin Britton, with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Edward Gardiner. So, Eralyn Wallin, I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book. What will that be?

Presenter48:36

Please could I have the biggest collection of bark that you can source?

Presenter48:40

So it's all the scores and manuscripts. Why would you take it with you? To me Bach is this endless font of inventiveness, joy, passion, and, I would say, genius, whose influence

Presenter48:53

Continues today. Of course, you can have it. You can also have a luxury item, Errolyn. It can't be practical, it's got to be for pleasure or sensory stimulation. Yes, well, now, because John Major took the Oval Cricket Ground, I would like Wigmore Hall, but particularly because I want to be sitting on the stage of the Wigmore Hall or playing the Steinway D. But the thing about this piano is the middle pedal operates a self-dispensing cake flap and it'll probably be Buttonberg cake. So a piano that is also a cake dispenser housed within Wigmore Hall. Yes, please. Okay, well, I don't see why not. Why Wigmore Hall in particular? Oh, it's the most amazing acoustics. But the feeling of playing on that stage is something I'll never forget. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves?

Presenter49:45

Oh, I just don't know. I I think it has to be the bach.

Presenter49:48

Every note that man wrote has such energy, joy, and love in it. It's like food.

Presenter49:55

It's food to the soul, I think. Bock and cake. I think you're going to be fine on this either. I think it will be, yes.

Errollyn Wallen50:00

I think it would be a good thing.

Presenter50:01

Erin and Wallen, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Lauren. It's been a pleasure.

Presenter50:31

Hello. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Erilyn. I'm sure she'll enjoy studying her music choices at close quarters on the island. We've cast away many music specialists, including the composers Carl Jenkins and Sir Lennox Barclay, and the conductor Marin Olsop. The composer and conductor Andre Preven, who Erilyn admired as a child, is in there too. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and on BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Sarah Hockley, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, the production coordinator was Susie Roylands, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the writer David Nichols. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 251:25

I'm Tom Heaton.

Speaker 351:26

And I'm Helen Chersky.

Speaker 251:27

A journalist?

Speaker 351:28

Physicist

Speaker 251:28

Ready to tackle the biggest issues on the planet.

Speaker 251:31

Each week on Rare Earth, a podcast from BBC Radio 4, we investigate a major news story about our environment and wildlife. We delve into the history. How on earth did we get here? We stir up the politics. Who's right and who's wrong? And we search for effective solutions to rising temperatures and collapsing wildlife.

Speaker 351:50

In our new series, we'll be learning how to reduce the destructive power of wildfires, and we'll be hearing how the most vulnerable communities are trying to flood-proof their cities.

Speaker 252:01

And we'll reveal the new phenomenon of green hushing. Companies no longer want to talk about the environment. They're worried that green activists will point out their hypocrisy, while right-wing critics accuse them of being too woke. Better to say and perhaps sadly do nothing.

Speaker 352:18

Listen to Rare Earth on bbc sounds.