seamus dubhghaill

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Birth of Irish Composer John McLachlan

Irish composer John McLachlan is born in Dublin on March 5, 1964.

McLachlan is the son of the writer Leland Bardwell, and studies at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) Conservatory of Music and Drama (1982–86), the Royal Irish Academy of Music (1989–97), and Trinity College Dublin (BA 1988). He studies composition with William York, Robert Hanson and Kevin Volans. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Trinity College (1999) for a study of the relationship between analysis and compositional technique in the post-war avant-garde.

McLachlan writes numerous articles for The Journal of Music in Ireland (2000–10). He is executive director of the Association of Irish Composers (1998–2012), and in 2007 he is elected to Aosdána.

McLachlan is the featured composer in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra‘s “Horizons” series in 2003 and 2008. He also represents Ireland at international festivals, including the ISCM World Music Days in Slovenia in 2003 and Croatia in 2005. In 2006, his work Grand Action is commissioned as a test-piece for the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition.

McLachlan’s musical aesthetic is largely shaped by a desire to impart a sense of narrative and expectation to his music without recourse to pastiche rhetorical devices. A critic writes of a recording of McLachlan’s piano piece Nine: “The style of each little piece sends one’s imagination and musical memory reeling, some of them evoking French Impressionism, some jazzy in feel, some reminiscent of the miniatures for piano of Webern, and none of them in any way, shape or form derivative.” Much of his music is structured in contrasting and suddenly changing block-like sections of homogeneous material. The material within these sections is propelled by a rigorous focus on subtle rhythmic and melodic permutations, which result in both surface opacity and gradually increasing tension.

McLachlan’s works have been performed in the United States, Peru, Japan, South Africa, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Moldova, Slovenia, Croatia, and around Ireland, with broadcasts in several of these countries. Performers who have played his music include the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Opera Theatre Company, the National Chamber Choir, Concorde, Sequenza, Traject, Archaeus, the Pro Arte Orchestra, Antipodes, Ensemble Nordlys, The Fidelio Trio, The ConTempo Quartet and Trio Arbós as well as many prominent soloists including Ian Pace, John Feeley, Mary Dullea, Darragh Morgan, Satoko Inoue and David Adams.

McLachlan is also known as a broadcaster and writer on contemporary music, with many published articles.

McLachlan now lives in Inishowen, County Donegal.


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Cranberries Single to Benefit Chernobyl Children

hewson-roche-o-riordan-2002Irish rock band The Cranberries announce on February 7, 2002 that proceeds from their new single, Time Is Ticking Out, will be donated to the Chernobyl Children Project International.

The band’s lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan, is joined by the project’s executive director and founder, Adi Roche, and patron Ali Hewson, wife of U2 frontman Bono, at the Clarence Hotel, Dublin, to make the announcement.

O’Riordan explains how she wrote the song in the Spring of 2001 after she had seen the children of Chernobyl. Having just given birth to her second child, the pictures of children born with so many illnesses moved her to tears, she said.

She says it is her hope that, as well as funds, the single will help raise awareness about the plight of the Chernobyl children. The band’s previous offering, Analyse, sold over 175,000 copies worldwide as of 2002.

Thanking the Cranberries, Roche says the song’s title is appropriate as the health problems caused by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 26, 1986, are only beginning to emerge.

She says the effects are moving to the “next generation who are now witnessing soaring levels of infertility and genetic changes, especially among those who were less than six years of age when the accident happened.”

Founded in 1991, the Chernobyl Children Project International, now known as Chernobyl Children International, is an Irish charity that works to help the children who are living victims of the nuclear disaster. As of February 2002, it had sent €24 million in aid to the region.

(From “Cranberries single to benefit Chernobyl children”, The Irish Times, Thursday, February 7, 2002 | Pictured: (L to R) Ali Hewson, Adi Roche, and Dolores O’Riordan at the Clarence Hotel, February 7, 2002)