Bill Whelan and guests

Image via WikipediaBill Whelan and guests - The Irish Times - Wed, Sep 01, 2010: "Some will recall that Ireland took the 1994 Eurovision prize with Rock’n’Roll Kids�, but the de facto winner of that particular song contest was surely a dance. Nor, 16 years later, would luck seem to be running out for Riverdance�, that luckiest of Bill Whelan’s inspirations. The smash-hit show it spawned has now been playing to worldwide audiences for longer than did the most prominent of Eurovision victors, Abba�.
Whelan must be one of the few people in the wordy world of popular music ever to have had a big say purely in the language of notes. He describes his secret simply as “taking trad music, working it in with the orchestra, and giving it a new twist”.
The Seville Suite�and Riverdance�have sounded subtler than they did in Friday’s muscular performances by the RT� Concert Orchestra under principal conductor David Brophy. Amplification funnelled the timbres, and spelled danger for the solo string tuning."