What's it like to be Fergus Johnston?

A short, informal question and answer interview with Fergus Johnston.

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

My first documented efforts were variations sung extempore on Amhrán na bhFiann [Irish national anthem] at, I would hazard, the age of six (judging by my behaviour on the tape). I made subsequent efforts at writing for recorder at around eight. But I was never going to be a composer then: I wanted to be an astrophysicist, but couldn't spell it.

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

It depends on the day. When I'm composing, I do it in the morning and afternoon. I also occasionally teach and drive a taxi (activities which, when they occur, tend to be post-meridian and nocturnal respectively).

3. Where do you mostly get your ideas?

Gutter science, ideas of flux and chaos, Buddhism, rivers, my head.

4. What are you working on at the moment?

A piece for double bass and electronics.

5. Describe your typical working day.

There is no typical working day. Every day is different. Every day is special, although each one starts with a cup of coffee in bed.

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

Interesting.

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

I don't know. Possibly having my brother [Gareth Costello] perform my flute concerto in the National Concert Hall with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Alexander Anissimov in 1997. But the piece was compositionally flawed at the time. I've rewritten it now, but Gareth doesn't play any more.

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

My first ever review by a critic, whose name I prefer not to grace by mentioning, who somehow skillfully managed to name me, the piece, the poet whose words I had set and the effect my setting had on him in a staggeringly concise 16 words.

9. What is your greatest ambition?

To be financially independent so that I can spend more time composing and no time driving drunks home.

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

Hard to say, there are so many, and the question presupposes that I know every musician in history, and I don't. Maybe William Byrd, because he survived all that religious persecution and wrote wonderful music; maybe Jean Sibelius, because he took the huge step of deciding it was time to stop, having written one of the greatest masterpieces of the symphonic repertoire.

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

I think possibly David Adams [organist] for his astounding musicianship and his equally astounding humility.

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

The future, because it's exciting and hasn't gone wrong yet.

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

The composing process.

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

The process of composing.

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

Astrofisizi... astrovizisis... astrofuzisest...

16. What is your concept of heaven?

Silence within.

17. What is your concept of hell?

Silence without.

18. What is your favourite food?

Perfectly fried eggs and fried sliced yesterday's potatoes with salt, black pepper, garnished with Tabasco and soy sauce.

19. If someone gave you three months off with unlimited travel and living expenses, what would you do?

Sit at the top of the Peak of Eternal Light at the north pole of the Moon, and watch the Earth as it stayed there pretty much motionless, but for a gradual declination and ascension of 1.5 degrees every lunar month due to the tilt of the moon’s rotation.

20. If you could have one thing in the world that would really help you as a composer, what would it be?

More imagination.