Composer Bill Whelan and fiddler Zoë Conway tell Siobhán Long about putting Irish trad and classical into a musical blender
Grammy awards, Broadway runs as long as an Oscar nominations list, transformational Eurovisionary composer; Bill Whelan has managed to have his finger in every musical pie imaginable, from big screen soundtracks (Lamb, Dancing at Lughnasa, Some Mother's Son) to record production with U2, Van Morrison and Kate Bush, to orchestral works such as The Seville Suite, with the occasional global-crunching stage show - Riverdance - thrown in for good measure.
After the phenomenal success of Riverdance, Whelan could be forgiven for selling out to mammon, relocating to LA, and engaging in a spot of cigar-fuelled deal-making with the silver screen moguls who eat Broadway hits for breakfast. Instead, he's been busying himself of late with Carna, a concerto composed with traditional fiddler Zoë Conway in mind, along with dancer Colin Dunne, lilter Morgan Crowley and the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
"Carna was preceded by Inis Lacken," Whelan explains, "which is an island near Roundstone. When we did Inis Lacken, the idea was to marry traditional and classical music. This time, I wanted to keep Zoë at the centre, but I also wanted to incorporate dance. I wanted to use the feet not specifically in a theatrical way, but more as a musical instrument; almost like a bodhrán with the orchestra."
Whelan has engaged Colin Dunne for this task, the second most famous Riverdance male lead, but he admits that regardless of the talent and skill of the dancers and musicians, he can't help harbouring a tincture of apprehension before his newest concerto sees the light of day.
"I hope it works," he offers nervously. "I've tried to pick up rhythms within dance, and allowed sufficient freedom for the dancer to do a little bit of ad-libbing within the phrases I've written for the orchestra. The other element that's still unknown is lilting. I've experimented with mouth music a bit in the past, using chanting and so on, and I've written music for lilting, but the challenge will be to see how it works with an orchestra - acoustically and musically. Anyway, the last movement of Carna involves lilting, fiddling, feet and orchestra."
Having written two pieces linked geographically in Connemara, Whelan views Carna as a comfortable bedfellow for Inis Lacken, although his aim is to compose a further two orchestral pieces, with the resultant quartet having the potential to be aired together.
"I hope I'll have either an evening or an album that will be performable," says Whelan with the pragmatism of a composer whose words are seldom idle. "Their shared inspiration is my living in Connemara. Carna was one of the first places in Connemara I visited when I was 20 years of age, and it made a big impression on me. In writing the piece, I decided to focus on a particular day, St MacDara's day, the 17th of July, when all the boats out of Connemara set sail for MacDara's Island, and there is mass in Irish there. There's a bit of craic; it's not madly devotional and yet there's a spiritual undercurrent that defines the day. So with that theme, the piece I've written opens with the dawn and progresses through the day."
ZOË CONWAY, AT the crusty old age of 23, is suitably flattered by Whelan's compositional attentions, having already experienced his guiding hand as producer of her eponymously titled solo debut in 2002. Speaking from Edinburgh, where she's on tour with Riverdance, she admits to competing feelings of excitement and apprehension at the prospect of stepping centre stage when Carna is premiered in the University of Limerick's Concert Hall on March 9th, with performances in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and in Carnegie Hall, New York, to follow.
"I think that technically and stylistically, it will suit my playing," she offers tentatively. "But really it gives Bill freedom to do madder things, like big massive runs from the bottom of the fiddle to the top. It's full of classical ideas, but in a different style. I would say the reason that Bill's written this for me is that it leaves him free to write as he chooses, rather than writing in a restricted style. It sounds quite traditional, but there are a lot of unusual keys that traditional fiddle players wouldn't be used to playing in, and a lot of different positions too. It would be quite difficult if you hadn't learned any classical, I think."
Melding traditional and classical styles doesn't pose any conflict for Conway. "I think that I play in one style. I don't really see it as separate styles. I just play and I don't really think about it. It's just happens. I definitely have an advantage in that I can play both traditional and classical, and marry the two, and Carna certainly demands that of the musician. There has to be some kind of unity in the whole piece; that's what's important."
Whelan admits Carna has challenged him compositionally in different ways, from the atonal qualities of the dawn introduction to the slow airs, which he's written for Conway, to the sets of tunes he's written to represent the boats departing for MacDara's Island. "You always have to write with the belief that the music will end up in some trusty hands. But even writing for a lilter posed a question; technically, can you write above a G or an A for a lilter? You can only do it if you know someone who can sing like that. Equally, knowing that Zoë has the muscle to handle the technical challenges of the piece is really important. But it's not just about technique either. Zoë has a certain spirit that when you write a piece of music for her, it comes back at you with part of her own spirit in it."
Music must achieve much more than mere technical proficiency, or even wizardry, Whelan insists. "If all we're going to do is astound with technique, then we shouldn't be at it. Music is not gymnastics. You should be able to move people with a simple passage as much as you do with great technical expertise. Zoë is a musician who admires technical proficiency, but she also has an elegance and maturity in her playing that amazes me. Sometimes I hear her playing a slow air, and I'm surprised that this is a person in her early twenties, and that she can achieve such a depth of expression without having been around for years and years."
BILL WHELAN'S PREVIOUS incarnations as session musician, arranger and producer have served him well. "Travelling the world with Riverdance has been a real eye-opener. When I think of the parochial arguments that we get bogged down in here about tradition and innovation, and I see how robust the tradition is! We're in such a fantastically lucky position, and that's because we've allowed young people to take control of the music, and not try to fix it in one place. So many other countries have not had the same fortune. It's extraordinary that we have a tradition that is so old, gives us a sense of who we are, and yet doesn't fix us. It's a touchstone against which we can move forward as opposed to something that just becomes a national flag."
Ultimately, Whelan suggests, the whole is certainly more than the sum of the parts, for all musicians. "You keep on listening. Why did I like Thelonius Monk and Frank Zappa, and why did I like O'Riada, Planxty and Moving Hearts? When I sit down to write my own stuff, all of these influences must come into the picture. No one is an island. You are a product of what you've grown up with. And yet I'm just as open to influences from eastern Europe, Brazil and beyond.
"There has to be something essentially spiritual and human about the music that makes a connection for you as a listener."
Bill Whelan's Carna will be performed by Zoë Conway, Colin Dunne and the Irish Chamber Orchestra (conductor: Nicholas McGegan) next Wednesday in University Concert Hall, UL, and on Thursday, Mar 10, in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Tickets: €25; booking: 1890-923543. Proceeds from the two Irish concerts go to Chernobyl Children's Project. Carna will also be performed on Tuesday, Mar 15, in Carnegie Hall, New York. Tickets: e-mail booking@carnegiehall.org