Myleene Klass on Singing in the Rainforest: "The islanders thanked us for giving them a voice"
The former pop star returns to the jungle tonight, making music with the Ulithians on the remote Pacific island of Mog
When you’re a successful classical musician used to selling out illustrious concert halls, it’s easy to become precious about the conditions necessary for top-notch performance.
However Myleene Klass was forced to go back to basics for her latest project, Singing in the Rainforest, when she and record producer Nigel Wright (pictured below) arrived on the pacific island of Mog Mog (size: one-mile long, population: 200) to write and record a piece of music with its inhabitants.
“When you record in a sound booth, it’s devoid of any outside noise but we had the sea, cockerels, pigs and the sound of coconuts falling on the track,” says Klass. Not that this distracted from the final result – a spine-tingling combination of indigenous chants and rippling piano chords.
"The islanders thanked us for giving them a voice. The women in particular don't always have a voice. Some of them don't even know how old they are. They said we gave life back to the island because they don’t write down their history, they pass it on through song. A lot of people had never heard those chants before but now they’ve been passed on to a new generation.”
You can hear an exclusive sneak peek of the track Myleene recorded with the islanders below.
Singing in the Rainforest begins on Watch (Sky 109, Virgin 124 HD, Virgin 191) on Monday 14th September at 9pm
