Interview by Rose Rushe
“Certain mysteries are relayed to me/ Through the dark network of my mother’s body/ While she sits sewing the white shroudss/ Of my apotheosis”
– ‘An Unborn Child’
A DARK, knowing read, the poem ‘An Unborn Child’ by Belfast’s Derek Mahon formed the germ of Bill Whelan’s composition ‘Linen and Lace’. Written for flautist Sir James Galway, it will premiere in our concert hall on Saturday June 21 with other music by Whelan and elements of dance, violin and orchestral manoeuvres on a grand scale.
Photo: Keith Wiseman
‘Linen and Lace’ is commissioned by RTE lyric fm. It will be platformed by RTE National Symphony Orchestra for its Summer Season and while he attributes Sir James’ status to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s interest in premiering ‘Linen and Lace’ in America, let us be real. ‘Riverdance’s’ command of 17,000 excited seats in January bounced Limerick City of Culture from nigh-collapse into glory.
The world, from China and Europe this year to United States in 2015, wants this revisioned spectacular. As with ‘Riverdance’, ‘Linen and Lace’ is a gift to the city, no fee to the composer for City of Culture branding (he sits on the board – and the university’s).
We’ve done alright out of Bill Whelan, the boy from Barrington Street whose family insisted he qualify for a right job, solicitor, prior to this razzle-dazzle career of international resonance.
Irish Chamber Orchestra pioneered other parts to the June 21 programme: his ‘Connemara Suite’s ‘An Chistin’ which will be danced by Colin Dunne, and ‘Inishlacken’, double concerto for traditional fiddle and classical violin, played by Zoe Conway, with whom he has a long term work relationship and Catherine Leonard respectively, with RTE NSO.
Looking out on his old home from No. 1 Pery Hotel, we circle back to ‘Linen and Lace’ and the Ulster poet’s invoking of expectant mother “while she sits sewing the white shrouds” for her child.
“The image of the woman with her linens suited me for the notion of Limerick and lace, and Belfast – the collaboration was about the working people of the two cities. The Belfast [music] begins with a march and then a big piece inspired by the whole industrial life of shipbuilding and smaller crafts such as linen making and the like”.
This movement closes off, inspired by Belfast’s looming Cave Hill, “a reflection on life in the city, as it had been since it began and its more recent troubled past. It’s quite a sombre piece and feels big orchestrally”.
“Although sometimes at night, when the city/ Has gone to sleep, I keep in touch with it/ Listening to the warm red water/ Racing in the sewers of my mother’s body” – An Unborn Child
For him, Limerick is a place he remembers with “horses everywhere and even now, they are very much evident in urban life”. Hence a trot written for flute and orchestra, leading into “the idea of lace and intricate work, the interweaving of melodies between flute and woodwind suggesting the complexity of lace, its filigree”.
He talks of the finale as moving towards “a reprise of the march, the horse theme and Sir James coming to the end of this with a cadenza.”
What can we anticipate as expectations are great? The hot currency of his creativity epitomises a Sanskrit saying: “A happy present makes for a beautiful past, and reasons for optimism in the future”.
From past performance, consider a world premiere of beauty and reflection.
Book for Saturday June 21, 8pm, Bill Whelan Gala with RTE National Symphony Orchestra on www.uch.ie and box office at the concert hall
