Bringing the Divine to Drogheda
Sofia Gubaidulina interview in the Irish Times.
For Sofia Gubaidulina, music and spirituality are inseparable, with one informing her passion for the other.MICHAEL DERVAN meets the leading Russian composer as she prepares for her first performance in Ireland. Read more here
RTÉ Radio 1 Arts Tonight
26th April 2010 at 10pm
On tonight’s programme we profile the music of Russian Composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Born in Russia in 1931, she is one of the world’s most significant living composers. As a composer in Russia in the Soviet era, her music was banned and it wasn’t until the fall of the old regime that her music was widely introduced to the West. Since then,she has made up for those lean years and her music is now performed
worldwide by everyone from the New York Philharmonic to the Berlin Philharmonic and everywhere in between, including, Drogheda in Co. Louth, where a concert of her music called The Fire and the Rose will be taking place next Saturday May 1st .
Vincent Woods will be joined on the programme by Eamonn Quinn of the Louth Contemporary Music Centre who is organising this event and musician and head of Orchestral Studies at the DIT conservatory of Music and drama, Cliona Doris.
For full details on this concert please go to www.louthcms.org
BBC Radio Ulster Arts Extra
Gerard McBurney featured on BBC Ulster Arts Extra at 6.30pm on Monday 26 April 2010 talking about Sofia Gubaidulina
Monday 26 April 2010 .
Classical Notes 25 April 2010 By Dick O’Riordan
Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina – regarded by many as the greatest music innovator to emerge from her country since Dmitri Shostakovich -will pay her first visit to Ireland for a showcase of her work on 1 May 1 during the Drogheda Arts Festival.
The v isit continues Louth Contemporary Music Society’s aim to attract leading international composers to the annual event. Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Valentyn Silvanov and Arvo Part are among previous participants.
The work of Gubaidulina is often compared with Part’s.Both composer infuse their music with spirituality and mysticism, creating a sense of timeless serenity.Both also felt the force of Stalin’s wrath because of their involvement with unapproved music forms and experimentation. For most of her life, Gubaiduliana, now almost 70, supported herself by writing music for films and theatre. Shostakovich recognised her special gift early on when she moved to Moscow from her home in the Tatar region of the USSR (now the Russian Federation republic of Tatarstan).
‘‘Sofia’s music, which was practically unknown in the west before the Iron Curtain fell, is now in great demand all over the world,” says Eamonn Quinn, the co-founder of Louth Contemporary Music Society.‘‘We are a small society trying to make a big difference to contemporary music in Ireland. We are becoming more recognised internationally, and this has helped us attract such important composers and performers.”
The Fire and the Rose: the Music of Sofia Gubaidulina takes place in St Peter’s Church, Drogheda, Co Louth on May 1 .
The performers include Ivan Monighetti, Dublin Guitar Quartet, Malachy Robinson, Dermot Dunne, the Oriel Trio and the Heath Quartet.
Tickets €15. A free screening of the film, A Fire And A Rose about the composer’s life and work , takes place at 5pm in Barlow House, Drogheda on May 1 .
Tickets for both events are available at 0419807114