Music of the white silence
On December 14th 1909, explorer Ernest Shackleton was in Dublin, lecturing at UCD about his ‘Nimrod’ Antarctic expedition. Next week, exactly 100 years on, composer Michael Holohan will commemorate the moment with a new piece of music theatre LANDSCAPE HAS BEEN a major theme for Michael Holohan. It may seem an odd thing to say about a composer, but as a long-time resident of the Boyne Valley, he has written a good deal of music which evokes the rivers, forests and ancient burial sites of this part of Ireland. He has also woven the contrasting natural materials of classical and traditional music into a seamless whole in such works as The Road to Lough Swilly , for string orchestra and uilleann pipes. Over the years, too, he has worked with many poets, among them Paul Durcan and Seamus Heaney, to craft a distinctive blend of words and music. Even this experienced musical traveller was quite startled, however, when he was asked by the National Concert Hall to write a new piece evoking the...