What's it like to be John Buckley?

A short, informal question and answer interview with John Buckley.

1. How and when did you get interested in composing?

At the age of sixteen after hearing recordings of Beethoven's Third Symphony and Penderecki's Threnody. I knew then that I had no choice but to be a composer.

2. Is composing your 'day job' or do you do something else as well?

It was my fulltime day job for almost twenty years but now I divide my time between lecturing in St Patrick's College, Drumcondra and composing.

3. Where do you mostly get your ideas?

They seem to come of their own accord, but this is not so surprising since I spend most of my time imagining sounds and how they can be combined.

4. What are you working on at the moment?

A concerto for violin and orchestra for soloist Gwendolyn Masin.

5. Describe your typical working day.

It varies quite a lot depending on the day or the time of year but includes lecturing on harmony, composition or music education, meeting students, organising musical events within the college, and composing music during all the remaining hours.

6. What is it like hearing a new piece played for the first time?

In reality you hear it in your imagination as you write it. At the first public performance you feel a combination of excitement and dread in case all your ideas don't work as well as you imagined.

7. What has been the highlight of your career so far?

Any performance or CD release of my work seems like a highlight.

8. What has been the lowlight of your career so far?

Cancelled performances of my organ concerto and other specially written works at a major German music festival a few years ago. It came as a shock to me to learn that there was no organ in the hall intended for the concerto performance.

9. What is your greatest ambition?

To be a better composer.

10. Which musician in history do you most admire and why?

Choosing the ten I most admire would be extremely difficult -- choosing one is almost impossible. The list would have to include Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven.

11. Which present-day musician do you most admire and why?

This changes from day to day depending on what I'm listening to or studying. The French composer Henri Dutilleux is near the top of my list now for the sheer beauty of sound and transparency of textures in his works for orchestra.

12. Which period of history would you most like to have lived in and why?

Apart from now (which seems as good a time as any) the first half of the eighteenth century, but only if I was Kapellmeister at an extremely enlightened German court. I have always fancied the idea of my own orchestra to try out my compositions.

13. What is the best thing about being a composer?

Putting a double bar line at the end of yet another composition and having the music performed.

14. What is the worst thing about being a composer?

People who ask you what you really do for a living after you've just told them you're a composer.

15. If you weren't a composer, what other career might you have chosen?

An astronaut or a carpenter.