The World's most beautiful music: Karl Jenkins' Adiemus

Dr. Karl William Jenkins OBE D.Mus.(born 17 February 1944), is a Welsh musician and composer. Jenkins was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honors list for 2005.

For the bulk of his early career, he was known as a jazz and jazz-rock musician, playing variously: baritone and soprano saxophones, keyboards, and oboe, an unusual instrument in a jazz context. He joined jazz composer Graham Collier's group and later co-founded groundbreaking jazz-rock group Nucleus, which won first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1970. Later he joined the Canterbury progressive rock band Soft Machine in 1972 and co-led their very last performances in 1984. The group defied categorisation and played venues as diverse as the Proms, Carnegie Hall, and the Newport Jazz Festival.

As a composer, his breakthrough came with the innovative crossover project Adiemus. Jenkins has conducted the Adiemus project in Japan, Germany, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well as London's Royal Albert Hall and Battersea Power Station. The Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary (1995) album sold well enough where it topped the classical album charts. It spawned a series of successors, each revolving around a central theme.

The Adiemus series include:

Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary
Adiemus II: Cantata Mundi
Adiemus III: Dances of Time
Adiemus IV: The Eternal Knot
Adiemus V: Vocalise

Information source: Wikipedia

This video recording features a live performance of the first movement of Adiemus IV: The Eternal Knot. Conducted by Karl Jenkins and featuring the vocal talent of Miriam Stockley, I found this piece to be both stirring and inspiring.