About
I’m a Welsh composer / musician / performer / teacher / collaborator / improviser.
I left Wales when I was 17 determined to explore the world. Strangely enough I have done just that.
My work still takes me to unexpected parts of the world. I’m always surprised at how the invitations and journeys come about.
Who would have thought I would find myself high up in the mountains of Madagascar listening to women sing their traditional songs on a the bus crawling at a snails pace over deep potholes gouged by the tropical rain,
or
getting lost in the Gobi desert in the dead of night swigging Mongolian spirits to keep warm and teaching Rod Stewart’s ’I am Sailing’ to one of Mongolia’s top Xhoomii singers,
or
being taught Ouhm Khalsoum’s melodies by a fan on a Felucca drifting up the Nile in Egypt.
Everyday I think to myself how fortunate I am as a musician. I earn my living doing something I love and feel passionate about.
Music is a universal language. In this climate of fear born out of the terrorists threat,
I make work that openly celebrates the fusion of Muslim and Western cultures. It is a political act.
It is my way of banishing the nightmare of powerlessness and fighting back at the injustices of the world.
At this point in time I find myself drawn back to Wales to rediscover my roots.
The mountains and the landscapes of my childhood that have been the stuff of my dreams have called me back.
I need to be close to this land, to be able to hear and speak Welsh again, to (hopefully) work with Welsh artists.
In this site you will be able to find out about all the projects that I’m involved in.
Listen to some tracks and hopefully buy some CD’s! Find out about gigs and performances.
The archive section is an on going project. As I find old photos, unearth reviews and publicity from way back when I will add them to the site.
Enjoy
Below you can find my mini CV.
A full version of my CV can be viewed here
Read the Sianed Q&A with Mike Butler METRO LIFE
Sianed Jones Mini CV
Sianed Jones is a Composer / Performer / Improviser / Teacher specialising in Extended Vocal Techniques, working in cross art form projects collaborating cross culturally with choreographers. writers, film makers and performance artists in site specific performances. She holds a B.A (Hon) Degree in Music from Dartington College of Arts 1980 and an M.Mus. Degree in Electro-acoustic Composition, University of East Anglia 1997. Her vocal research into has taken her to Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, (1987) Mongolia (1994) Kazakhstan, and Kyrgistan (1999).
Of her album*surrender The Wire* writes ‘She is a widely travelled musician and has listened openly, assimilating vocal techniques and expanding her sense of possible musical relationships. That’s reflected here in a stream of global echoes draped around slinky beats, helping carry the political and ethical weight of words she quotes from Virginia Wolf: ‘As a woman I have no country / as a woman I want no country / as a woman my country is the Whole world.’
Sianed has recently returned to live in Wales driven by a ‘hiraeth’ (longing) for the mountains and a desire to live and work with the language once more. In 2007 Sianed was a recipient of the Welsh Arts Council Creative Wales Award to make Taliesin a 3 screen Performance / Video / Installation with videomaker Henrietta Hale based on the 6th Century poems of Taliesin. ‘Sianed’s work consistently pushes at boundaries, in ideas, in technique and in her own performance practise’. The Welsh Arts Council 2007. Sianed’s composition bears the influences of her travels and musical curiosity. This, mixed with her musical roots of choral Penillion and Cerddant singing of the Eisteddfodau, classical training, European touring in the experimental electronic and free improvisation music world, creates an unique sound.
For the past year Sianed has been a composer / actress / musician in Henry IV part 1 and 2 and Richard II, part of The Royal Shakespeare’s History Company a season of all eight plays directed by Michael Boyd at Stratford-upon-Avon and then transferred to The Roundhouse in London ’One of the great events of modern theatre’ The Guardian ‘The Music was exquisite – the voice of Sianed Jones hovering ominously over tonal percussion’ The Daily Oxford.
Sianed returns to Cardiff to promote Taliesin and is currently recording a Celtic / Asian Fusion album of improvisations with South Indian Percussionist Divakar Subramaniam.