An Interview with Ian Wilson
Ian Wilson, interviewed on video by Michael Dungan, talks about his creative inspiration and his compositional output, including his recent first opera, Hamelin.
Michael Dungan: In the quotation that's at the top of your potted biography in the Contemporary Music Centre's catalogue you make a reference to 'faith and life' in your music. Few people would deny that life plays a role in creative activity. But there are plenty of people for whom faith would have little to do with it. How does this work for you?
IW: In my experience, not. I find that musicians, especially busy ones -- usually if they're good, they're busy -- they just get sent stuff all the time. I remember -- and I think this is true, but maybe I won't name them -- a quartet I know quite well said, 'We get sent stuff all the time and we decided we weren't going to do any of this and instead just commission our own works.' And I've a feeling that quite a few performers feel the same way. It only ever happened once to me that I gave some scores to a pianist. Four years later I got a call: 'Hi, it's so-and-so, I finally got around to looking at your stuff'. He commissioned a little piece from me. So it's not worth it. I think musicians really have to feel that there is some contact with you. And that's why I really value the musician friends that I have, people who have become friends over the years, who've been playing my music. You establish that kind of double relationship where socially they are friends, but musically or professionally there's a respect there that can make an ongoing relationship. That's one of the real joys for me in writing music, that I can write for people who I know and respect. It gives a different focus to the music completely when you really know that person well, who you're writing for.
MD: It would appear that it would be very difficult to survive as a full-time composer unless you did those things and could establish those kinds of relationships.
IW: I think it's very necessary. It's something I've had to achieve in myself in regards to personal traits, if you like. Because I can remember when I was younger, starting off, and had the odd performance here and there and I'd be introducing it. Sometimes my parents would come to the performance and they'd both be giving off to me: 'You really dropped your voice at the end of that sentence'. Those kinds of things are very helpful. The presentation package: people like that. But I think, at the bottom of it all, if the music isn't good, it's not going to help.
MD: But why saddle good music with poor presentation?
IW: Exactly. It's very useful if the two can go hand in hand. Ireland is a small place, it shouldn't be so difficult to get your name around.
MD: Hamelin is coming up in September and has had a production in Germany already and so is off your desk...
IW: Yes, since last night!
MD: So what's on your desk now? What's coming up?
IW: I have to write a wind quintet for a British group which I'm supposed to be writing now, but I just can't get my pencil to paper yet. But that will happen. I've to write a new solo for Catherine Leonard [the Irish violinist], which will involve live tape. I'm quite excited about that.
MD: That's a relatively new departure for you, is it?
IW: It is. It's not pre-recorded tape. It's tape which, essentially… No, I won't talk about it before I write it. It's live tape. And I've got an orchestral piece and a couple of other chamber pieces to write. So I have kind of a busy nine to twelve months coming up.
MD: Ian Wilson, thank you very much.
IW: Thank you.
Ian Wilson was interviewed on video by Michael Dungan at the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin, on 14 July 2003.