Adiemus is a Welsh new-age / world-fusion project created by Karl Jenkins in the mid-1990s. It’s famous for soaring, choir-led textures sung in an invented, non-semantic language, a clever way of making the human voice purely musical, free of literal meaning.
Adiemus first caught global attention after the music was used in a high-profile airline commercial in the mid-1990s, which led to the debut album Songs of Sanctuary. From there, the project evolved into a series of albums exploring different cultural and orchestral palettes.
Key Albums
Songs of Sanctuary (1995): The breakthrough album, introduced Adiemus’s signature wordless vocal language, blends orchestra, choir, world percussion, ambient textures, and includes the iconic title track Adiemus.
Cantata Mundi (1997): More explicitly global in scope, incorporates rhythmic and stylistic references to African, Middle Eastern, and Asian music, slightly darker and more rhythm-driven than the debut.
Dances of Time (1998): More cinematic and narrative, explores contrasts between stillness and motion, strong emphasis on rhythm, pulse, and dramatic arc.
The Eternal Knot (2001): The most spiritually reflective Adiemus album, inspired by ancient philosophies and the idea of interconnectedness, lush choral writing with a calmer, meditative tone.
Vocalise (2003): A compilation / reinterpretation album, features new arrangements of earlier Adiemus material, includes orchestral and vocal reworkings, making it feel more “classical crossover”.