Interview: BBC Radio 4 - The World Tonight

Interview with Shaun Ley from The World Tonight, recorded just before the first night of the BBC Proms. Talked about Hallelujah Sim., early influences, British/Japanese heritage, and what it means to have a piece at the Proms. From July 2024.

Excerpt

Ben Nobuto: So it’s a piece called Hallelujah Sim. and the ‘Sim.’ stands for ‘simulation,’ so the idea behind it is it’s a bit like a video game or a tutorial where the chorus has to sing these different versions of the word ‘hallelujah’ and each ‘hallelujah’ is like a level in a game, and there’s a voice in the electronics part that’s instructing the singers to do different things, like sing faster, sing slower, pause… There’s a bit at the start where it sort of builds it up so you just have the altos only, then the sopranos, and you hear all the different ingredients of the sandwich and it kind of comes together like that.

Shaun Ley: Your kind of serious interest in composition starts in your teens, among fellow pupils who maybe didn’t take music that seriously?

BN: I always felt kind of guilty about liking music? Like it’s not a serious thing to like. Yeah, it’s only in the last six years or something where I’ve felt like I really gave myself permission to say this is actually what I really like doing.

SL: Do you think in any way your combination of heritage has influenced or affected what you do musically?

BN: Maybe? Maybe it’s kind of subconscious. I try not to really foreground it in an explicit way, but we [other Japanese or half-Japanese composers I know] all seem to draw from this slightly manic, dazzling, internet-saturated world. You know when you walk around Tokyo you can just sort of feel that-

SL: What you see it on all the advertising-

BN: The billboards.

SL: Everything is live.

BN: Electric.