A short, informal question and answer interview with Ailís Ní Ríain.
Copyright ©2003 Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland. |
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What's it like to be Ailís Ní Ríain?
1. How and when did you get interested in composing?
I began learning to play the piano at ten years of age. I enjoyed it immediately and within a short time I wrote little pieces I could perform myself.
2. Is composing your 'day job' or do you do something else as well?
I support myself in a number of ways. Presently, I am the festival administrator for the Royal Northern College of Music Quartetfest and I also work for the Royal Bank of Scotland. In addition, I enjoy being a freelance music educator encouraging creativity and self-expression though composition.
3. Where do you mostly get your ideas?
Everything around me is a potential source of inspiration. For me the minutiae of life are underpinned by a massive dramatic force that we generally don’t tap into. Increasingly, society promotes deepening the shallow and shallowing the deep. For me, reality TV, the internet, newspapers, political broadcasts, magazines and spam are as thought-provoking and vital as Beckett, Sartre, Andy Warhol, Arthur Miller, Pat Ingoldsby, Damien Hirst, Cage, Tom Waits and Will Self. Earlier this year I wrote a trumpet solo called FWD: (no subject) having received an email with that in the subject line. The nature and pace of our development is stunning.
4. What are you working on at the moment?
A commission for Music for Galway for bass clarinet and accordion to be premiered in Galway in February ’04; a piece for flute/speaker and treated piano for a young British flautist, Anne Allen, for her debut recital at Blackheath Halls, London, in December ’03; and a short-film score for a film called Le Dernier Adieu. In addition, I continue to work on my first book of poetry and the occasional painting.
5. Describe your typical working day.
It varies incredibly. I tend to have either ‘in days’ or ‘out days’. An ‘out day’ is from dawn to dusk where I dash from pillar to post engaging with lots of people and ‘keeping busy’. An ‘in day’ is just that, no people, introspective -- I go where my unconscious takes me to see if there’s anything there worth pilfering!
6. What is it like hearing a new piece played for the first time?
Unsettling.
7. What has been the highlight of your career so far?
Writing, directing, and producing my music-theatre piece EXIT in April ’03 was certainly a highlight as I finally got the opportunity to combine my various abilities in one project. Despite being stressful and time-consuming (non-stop for eight months) it was a delight; I only wish I could work in that capacity forever. Winning the RTE Millennium Composer of the Future Competition was a huge boost to my morale at the time, as was having Barry Guy bark his way through Dogs in Waiting having won the IMRO Mostly Modern competition a few years back.
8. What has been the lowlight of your career so far?
On a bad day I could answer this question in no less than 10,000 words. On a good day, I let it go and instead look forward to the future and my role in it.
9. What is your greatest ambition?
To develop an art-factory where artists, writers, musicians, composers, filmmakers and intellects of different persuasions and politics could collaborate to produce engaging, relevant and challenging multi-disciplinary art that neither patronizes nor compromises.
10. Which musician in history do you most admire and why?
Mussorgky. The opera Boris Godunov, Pictures at an Exhibition and particularly his song cycles are sublime. His art is most pure. I think I’d enjoy an evening in his company. Also, I admire Messiaen’s singularity and Cage’s musical egalitarianism and humour.
11. Which present-day musician do you most admire and why?
I admire many contemporary musicians, particularly Tom Waits. As a poet, musician and visionary there is no-one like him. Who else could write: ‘Tonight I’ll shave the mountain, I’ll cut the hearts from pharaohs, I pull the road off of the rise, tear the memories from my eyes and in the morning I’ll be gone.’ Heiner Goebbels, Radiohead, Ani DiFranco, Scott Walker and Beck are all exemplary artists.
12. Which period of history would you most like to have lived in and why?
I can’t imagine wanting to experience any period of history other than the one I’m living through now.
13. What is the best thing about being a composer?
The glorious opportunity for self-expression and engaging others with my ideas.
14. What is the worst thing about being a composer?
Insecurity.
15. If you weren't a composer, what other career might you have chosen?
I seriously considered joining the army. Now I would like to be a filmmaker, theatre director or playwright. Maybe I could participate in one of those job-swap reality TV programmes -- I’m sure loads of people would like to be a composer for a week!!
16. What is your concept of heaven?
1) No crime, tough government policies and the restoration of personal accountability.
2) Love, laughter, fine wine and good food.
3) Talking dogs, silent cats, giraffes on the streets.
17. What is your concept of hell?
Misbegotten, misplaced power, selfishness and violence towards anyone.
18. What is your favourite food?
I possess wonderfully expressive taste-buds that delight and enthuse independently of me. Should they encounter some chilled Chardonnay, Parma ham, French paté, olives, Cashel Blue cheese and leavened bread they respond ecstatically. I generally feel less than enthusiastic working it off at the gym...
19. If someone gave you three months off with unlimited travel and living expenses, what would you do?
I would probably travel throughout Europe in luxury and style and take Heiner Goebbels (composer) out to dinner.
20. If you could have one thing in the world that would really help you as a composer, what would it be?
Right now the ability to use and have easy access to a music technology suite would be particularly beneficial.
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