An Interview with Deirdre Gribbin

Belfast-born composerDeirdre Gribbin talks to Jonathan Grimes about her early musical experiences, the influence of Northern Ireland on some of her works, and her thoughts on audiences and the presentation of her music.

Jonathan Grimes: What are you currently working on?

Deirdre Gribbin: I’ve just finished a piece for the Phillips Collection Concert Series in Washington D.C. It’s a quite famous afternoon series within the [United] States. The piece is called Seeking the Whirlwind’s Secrets. It’s quite a furious dialogue between the violin and piano. It will be performed by Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea.

JG: And where did the title come from? It’s an intriguing one.

DG: I tend to have quite specific titles for my work and I can’t really start a piece unless I’ve got the title. I’m very interested in the planets and the weather systems, so this is about being in the eye of the storm. I had a recollection of being in Florida a few years ago and driving along the road and there was really heavy rain, turning into to hailstone. I couldn’t see the road because the hail was so bad. In the distance I could see this funnel thing moving up and down on the horizon and said, 'I think that might be a tornado', and it was. It was like seeing a wild animal really close to your car. That was an exciting moment and came out in this piece. Also, I don’t like for the piano to have the secondary role [in a piece]; I always like the 19th century idea of having that big dramatic tension between the two instruments. So the piano part is as full as the violin, and virtuosic I think. And it’s fast, I’m writing fast music at the moment.

JG: Will you get to work with the performers before the concert?

DG: Yes. They both live in London so I’ll be over there probably in the next couple of weeks sorting things out. I think they’ve got plans to do it in Ireland next year, so that would be good. We’re doing it in London in June as well so it’s getting quite a lot of performances.

JG: We interviewed Darragh a couple of months ago and it’s great because when he commissions a piece he tends to play it a lot.

DG: They [Darragh Morgan’s trio the Fidelio trio] commissioned a trio for me 10 years ago, How to Make the Water Sound, and they performed it last Friday, so they’re still doing it and they’re recording it next month. That’s my most performed piece.

JG: By many different ensembles?

DG: Different ensembles in different countries. Sometimes I don’t even know about it until my PRS statement that comes through.

JG: You grew up in Belfast during the height of the troubles. What effect did growing up in this environment have on your development as a composer?

DG: I left Belfast in 1989 to go to the Guildhall in London and prior to that I had been composing for a few years and had avoided thinking about it or writing about it at all in my work. It’s only later when I was commissioned to write a large ensemble piece for a Danish ensemble that I wrote a piece called Tribe, which was to do with the stand-off at Drumcree, a quite politically charged event when an Orange band was marching through a Catholic area. It was premiered at the Huddersfield Festival, and it got incredibly good feedback. I think it was because it had a real strong sense of identity that I hadn’t tapped into before. I was using a lot of folk melodies combined with a very intricate chromatic language. So I think that was the first piece that I had begun to think, ‘OK, I can write about this.’ Later I wrote a piece for the Ulster Orchestra called Unity of Being, for what was actually the first arts event that happened in New York city after 9/11. There was a great debate about whether the orchestra would fly, because it was quite a dangerous time. My piece was about infinite battle and infinite repose. I think it was a little touch towards a kind of resolution that’s happening within Belfast. So in a way it had its resonance from there and had a bigger resonance when it was done in the States. I think it had a big effect on the audience. It's one of the big events of my working life so far as a composer -- to have the opportunity of saying something, without having to say words. In fact with the concert that night it was subtitled Unity of Being, which was a kind of honour [for me]. I think they were expecting a gentle new piece, but it was really in your face, brutal, big drum solos. In many ways that’s an expression of the times that we live in, rather than something that is a world that’s nice and perfect and all tonal. For me, writing music that is chromatic is about expressing all different types of emotions through the actual tapestry of the sound that you are using.

JG: It’s interesting that you didn’t write about these subjects until you had left Northern Ireland. Was that due to the fact that you could look back with a more dispassionate view?

DG: I think that was part of it, but also as you get older you have more experience and people ask you all the time about it [experience of growing up in Northern Ireland]. I’m an artist so it’s a huge part of myself and obviously triggers an awful lot of things. It’s something that I came back to again with Goliath, my big percussion concerto, which the Belfast Festival commissioned last year. I always say that will be the last piece about Northern Ireland on that kind of scale. It was very much a piece about Belfast as it is now with a new population of immigrants, and putting the Lambeg drums, which are traditionally Orange marching band drums, in the context of the orchestra. In many ways it really did work because in the last movement they came in and the orchestra began to play their rhythm and it had a sense of being part of something new. I really hope the political situation resolves there but I hope things like the Lambeg drum don’t vanish because I think that’s a very important part of that culture. They’re very exciting instruments, regardless of their implications. It was an amazing response from the audience because lots of people had never seen a Lambeg drum, so seeing them and hearing them was fulfilling a curiosity. And for other people for whom the drums were important it was almost saying, ‘Yes, we have a place somewhere else.’ I hadn’t realised that the audience would be full of people who came [especially] to hear the Lambeg drums.

JG: What can you remember of your earliest musical memories?

DG: I have very strong memories of sitting under the table in the living room listening to my father playing the Dubliners records. And also I had an aunt who would take me to the Ulster Orchestra concert every Friday night from the age of about six. We had season tickets and we went every Friday, at a time when sometimes the concerts were late starting because there had been a bomb scare and half the orchestra hadn’t arrived. You could count the number of people in the audience at that time. I always painted. That was my big thing. I applied and got a place at art college but decided at the very last moment to do music. I hadn’t actually started composing at that point, but then I transferred the visual art skills into composing. Colour has always been a huge thing for me: thinking about a composition as you would a composition on canvas, blending textures and orchestrations. I love orchestrating sounds to get colours that I imagine in my head -- you get some really exquisite touches of colours. So I would say visual arts has been quite a big influence on my early work as well.

JG: Do you remember much of those concerts as a child?

DG: I remember I used to draw along to the music. It’s kind of interesting that that’s not that far from doing a graphic score. I remember going to the concerts and it being something very special. Then I got to an age where I was still going and really loved going but was afraid to tell my friends what I was doing on a Friday night. It was very uncool to be going to a classical music concert.

JG: Going regularly to these concerts is perhaps one of the reasons why you seem quite comfortable with writing for orchestra.

DG: Yes. I find it easier to write bigger things actually. Sometimes it’s better to have a bigger canvas to play with in a way.

JG: At what point did the notion of becoming a composer take hold in your life?

DG: In my third year at university I had the opportunity of writing for a string quartet for an ensemble from the Ulster Orchestra. The composer-in-residence in Queen's [University, Belfast] then wasKevin Volans and he was my teacher. I wrote something that made sense and I really enjoyed doing that. So then I began to start to write volumes of music every week and I just loved it. Writing pieces that seemed to have strong responses from people made me realise that this is what I should do. I had no notion of composing before that. Girls didn’t really do that. I think now it’s different. So I was 19-20 when I started writing. In many ways I’m glad that I waited until there was a moment to do it rather than maybe getting put off by not having the right influences. Then I decided to go and do a postgraduate, still not quite sure where was leading to. I entered a piece in the Huddersfield Festival and I won the a prize for that. Then I became very interested in the music of Per Norgard and wrote to him to ask if I could study with him. I got a phone call from him one night at a mixed household in south London, there was a party going on. So I went to Denmark for a year. That was a huge moment in terms of developing a different perspective.

JG: What effect did studying with Per Norgard have on your development as a composer at that time?

DG: Well I think I was drawn to his music because of the orchestration and the colour and the sort of Nordic sound. It[Denmark] was a very tight community -- composers go to all the concerts. If one of their colleagues has a performance they all go. I think the place really influenced what I did. Per Norgard obviously is a phenomenal mind; I think he’s one of the best living composers. He really has a sense of the bigger picture and where we are in the world in relationship to the planets and the bigness of things. He thinks in very mathematical terms and I’m quite intrigued by that. I had never used that kind of systematic approach to my work. At that time he gave me the courage to come back and say, ‘OK, this is what I do', even though I wasn’t earning very much money. I had to make a decision to do other jobs and work in restaurants as well as doing commissions.

JG: Tell me about the connection that you often develop with particular places and how it can influence your works.

DG: If I choose to be in a place to write something it will have a big influence. I’d been living for a time in a small village north of Newcastle-on-Tyne, a population of 150. During that time in Northumberland I’d written very quiet pieces with long moments for reflection, like How to Make the Water Sound and Rothko Chord. Then I went to New York, was bombarded by sound, and that influencedCelestial Pied Piper, it was the first piece that was really fast. Writing fast music is difficult -- it’s time consuming and is harder to get from your head onto the page. That was a very fun piece. Also humour in music is quite hard to do, and this was quite a humorous piece with sirens and bells and things like that. I’ve just finished a string quartet called Calum's Light, which was written in Scotland. That was very much influenced by the unspoken magic folklore that’s still part of the Hebridean people’s lives. There’s a story of a house right by the shore that used to have a light above it. It was pre-electricity, and the fisherman would go and sort out their nets there and use the light as a guide when there was no moon. I thought it was quite an interesting story in terms of all of us trying to find that moment of absolute peace and unfettered silence in our lives, which is almost impossible.

JG: What do you see as being the big issues in terms of overcoming the difficulties that exist for new music?

DG: Well the audience and what they are as part of the piece is quite important to me and it’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last five or six years. Looking at a performance as an event rather than a concert, where people are uncomfortable, afraid to make any sound because they’re in this hallowed environment. If you think about going to a jazz concert, how easy that is to be absorbed into what you’re hearing. We did a big tour a couple of years called the Venus Blazing Tour, and the whole concert was an event which was built as such with very glamorous, glitzy posters. I appeared in the piece doing my pre-concert talk as a Venusian with an incredible costume and a wig that was especially made. That was amazing because suddenly you’re in a different role, you’re the composer but you’re also on stage, you’re acting. And I played in it -- I was in the percussion section of the orchestra. The concert hall was beautifully lit by a lighting designer called Jeff Ravitz who lights for Bruce Springstein, and it was directed by Lou Stein from the Gate Theatre [Notting Hill, London]. We put it together as a team and I had a big influence on the colouring of the lighting. We sold out in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is an 800-seater theatre, and a lot of young people came to the concert. BBC World Series did a radio interview with audience members as they left the concert and lots of comments were, 'we came because we liked the poster, we’d never been to a concert before, we were curious about it'. It looked beautiful. We recorded it and we have a DVD of it now. It’s very exciting to see that effect can be achieved with actually just a little bit more thinking and a little bit more creativity. Maybe we should have less concerts and more events which audiences could start to follow.

JG: You don’t often get that sense of event with new music concerts, but when you do it’s fantastic. The effect is so powerful.

DG: I just wonder why ensembles don’t work with people like Lou[Stein] because that’s what he does very well. Empire States was lit when we first did it with the RTÉ [National Symphony] Orchestra. I thought it looked beautiful.

JG: How did the audience respond to that?

DG: I think they thought it was fun and there was a real buoyant atmosphere. I tend to work the lighting into the composition when I’m writing a piece and then Jeff and I have a chat about the lighting plan so it’s not just his design. I think they enjoyed it -- It was a good response.

JG: Tell me a little bit more about Empire States. How did you end up writing this work?

DG: I was commissioned by RTÉ to do this piece. I was thinking a lot about America and its position within the world and its history -- all the positive things that I had gleaned from being in New York City; it was written not long after I left there. I thought about the Empire State building, built in 1926 at a time of great depression. It was a great sense of hope for the city. The word empire is something that’s very much attached to the British Empire, which of course is a slight reference again to Northern Ireland. Is that what America was trying to be at that point? I suppose it was a little dig at the Bush regime. I think it’s interesting how a place could really get it so wrong, as time is really telling out. I can say that clearly now, whereas I was probably just hinting at it when the piece was written. I supposeEmpire State is the most direct, contemporary, political piece that I’ve written -- a sort of perception on politics that I hadn’t really done before.

JG: You would have started writing that in 2001?

DG: Yes, 2001. Being a Fulbrighter, the American embassy asked me to come and talk about that piece two years ago. I said pretty much what I’ve just said to you. If you’re going to write something that has artistic integrity and it has that intention behind it, it is important just to say what it is you mean. It raised an interesting debate about writing about this [subject].

JG: In relation to the composing process itself, has a definite pattern evolved in recent years in relation to how you approach writing a piece?

DG: I think every piece is different and I hope that is always the case. I always keep notebooks of thoughts for some ideas that I haven’t yet got the chance to use. I think there are fingerprints of what you do in every piece that define you as a composer. You can hear two chords of Stravinsky and you’ll know it's Stravinsky. I'd like to think that I don't write in a style -- there's something about the continuity of you having touched the piece rather than writing in a particular style. Often when you hear an orchestration, something is revealed that makes you think about something else. Having just written my fourth string quartet it’s quite interesting what I've consolidated in that. This was a twelve-minute commission and now I really want a chance to write a big 45-minute work because I know that's the next string quartet that should be written. I suppose it’s stacking up what’s going to be in the next piece as you’re writing a particular piece.

JG: So you approach it in blocks of time.

DG: Yes. Actually I’m very disciplined. I’ll take time off as well. AfterGoliath I took a couple of months off. That was such a huge piece that I couldn’t hear anything [after writing it]. It’s important that you hear what you’re going to write before you write it so that you’re walking around ‘carrying’ the piece. It often leads to dangerous things happening. I’ve had a couple little miniature accidents because my brain is somewhere else -- I’m thinking about the piece when I should be in the moment.

JG: You wrote an opera almost 10 years ago, Hey Persephone!. Do you have any other plans to write more operas or more music theatre works?

DG: Yes. I think the next big block of work will be the song cycle,Crossing the Sea. I’m not going to call it an opera because I don't consider it to be that, but it’s for voice and string quartet and it’s going to be a theatrical production with sets and lighting. Then after that I have been given a commission to write another opera, so it should take maybe 2 to 3 years to write that. I’m looking for a libretto at the moment -- I really want to write and work with the writer on the libretto. It's hard to find a libretto that gives you enough space to write the music and for that to be understood. I want the opportunity, because I have this commission, of just taking as long as it takes to write my next opera. It just takes so much time -- much more than an orchestral work. I think it’s because you’re creating characters and you’re living with the characters.

JG: You’ve written a number of works for film, including My Kingdomin 2001, and also several radio plays too. Presumably this aspect of your composing relies on a completely different approach.

DG: It does, and I really welcome this change because it's almost a different discipline. I think there’s a lot of very bad film music written these days in a very formulaic way. There are probably about 5 major Hollywood composers doing all the big scores and it’s all derived from nineteenth century music. The director Don Boyd had seen my opera, and thought 'I’d really like that kind of energy in the film'. That’s how the film commission came about. But it is very different because you hand your music over, and it can be cut and changed and shifted and you don’t have any ownership over what actually happens to the final bit of it. That can be a bit harsh and sometimes it’s [how the music is used] not what I intended it to be. I had a huge conference in London before Christmas about the debate about music in film and how directors perceive it and how composers perceive their position. There is a real move towards independent filmmakers working with composers in the contemporary field of music rather than film composers. So that’s an interesting shift.

Writing for radio was entirely different from film because you don’t have the visual cues to evoke an atmosphere. Yes, you have it within the drama of the play, which is then created with a layer of sound effects and atmosphere of being in an open field with birds in the background, but you have to then create it in the music. I love writing for radio -- I think it’s a really wonderful medium.

JG: Well presumably all this takes more discipline than writing concert works in that you have to include less rather than more.

DG: Yes, but you also have to work to time slots. So if it’s 21 seconds it has to be 21 seconds, so you have to have start and finish, you can’t just fade out. You can do that technically if you want to but it’s much better if you write for that moment where somebody is putting their glass down or lifting the phone up. You have that moment where the music starts and that next action. It’s quite tricky to do that. But there are only certain kind of films that I would work on and only certain kinds of directors I’d work with, people who are interested in working with me because of what I write. I think those kind of projects are definitely coming along.

JG: A lot of film music, as you say, is so formulaic.

DG: Film music can be just so much more subtle. It was in the Hitchcock/Herrmann relationship and in Marconi’s film music -- wonderful composers who understand the drama. Also not to dictate how an audience should be feeling, which is what happens when you have the big schmaltzy Hollywood point of resolution, which may not actually match the visuals at all, but that’s what the composer has been told to do. I think it’s much harder for an independent filmmaker to go along with something a little bit more austere and unfathomable, which may actually impact on the visuals. So it’s just finding people and personalities that will allow you the opportunity to do that. But every time I say this I know that I’m putting myself in a slightly left of centre, non-commercial arena. So every endeavour to be a more commercial composer goes out of the window [laughs].

JG: Are there any other composers or music types in general that have been a continuous source of inspiration to you?

DG: I try and play Bach every day. If I’m working I’ll sit down at the piano and play a bit of a prelude, and I’ve always done that. I think he’s a wonderful composer. Everything comes from Bach really. Janácek is probably another really big influence, in terms of what he’s written about music as well as the music itself. Also a lot of his works really came together in the latter part of his life. It’s very inspirational to see someone go through an entire life of working. John Cage’s music, his concepts and philosophies are very influential -- the things that he’s said about music I really identify with. I tend not to listen to too much music when I’m working because I have to really keep what’s in my head very clear. But I do listen to a lot of jazz -- Nina Simone, Miles Davis. Don Cherry is another jazz composer I just love. I actually saw one of his last concerts in London some years ago, just before he died. I think it might be the improvisatory nature of the music that I have an affinity with. So I’d say those are the main musical influences. And Bruce Springstein! [laughs]

Deirdre Gribbin was interviewed on video by Jonathan Grimes in the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin, on 17 April 2007.

The views expressed in this interview are those of the persons concerned and are not necessarily those of the Contemporary Music Centre.