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Exclusive Interview with Ronan Hardiman
Interview and photos by Annie from Dublin
Q: Of course you are now known throughout the world as composer of the incredible scores for Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance and Feet of Flames. While that breakthrough was a great milestone in your career do you now ever feel 'typecast', victim of the James Bond syndrome if you like? Are the majority of offers for similar projects or are do you have real flexibility?
A: Oh no, I would never regard it as any sort of millstone. It's been an unbelievable profile-boosting experience for me. As well as the show being successful and taking care of a lot material things, the more important thing is that it has posted my name and profile into the outer stratospheres.But no, I have been offered lots of different things, quite varied. I think because the score is varied, it's not just a traditional score. There are large tracts of orchestral music- I mean, the Nightmare sequence could be straight out of a James Bond film and I've had one or two interesting film offers on the basis of that!
So from that point of view it hasn't been typecasting at all, no, though I suppose a lot of people would regard me as a Celtic composer and sometimes I would be slightly uncomfortable with that. Particularly because for my own projects, the whole sort of Celtic label across the industry -- particularly in America -- is experiencing slight fatigue. There's been so many Celtic projects.
There're two big shows -- Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, a plethora of CD's -- Celtic Moods, Celtic Dreams, Celtic You-name-it -- it's a huge business. But I am conscious that particularly with my solo work, there is other than Celtic basis for it. It has, if you like, quite mystical elements to it, it has its feet firmly rooted in pop, New Age and dance, all those types of music.
Q: One of the things I personally love and admire about your music is that everything you create is so totally different to everything else you have created. You seem to have a great ability to diversify. Your first solo album 'Solas' was a wonderful, fresh surprise, quite unlike anything you had done before, and of course it has been highly successful. Tell me a little bit about it.
A: Well, it was an idea I had before I did Lord of the Dance. I had had this idea to pull together a couple of different strands of music -- classical, pop and dance, and some Celtic influence as well, mainly in vocals.So I had this concept in my mind and had in my spare time done some sketches and musical ideas. But it wasn't until after the show and offers began to come in and I was trying to figure out what to do next that the record companies -- Polygram and Universal -- actually suggested I might like to do a couple of solo albums, and were there any ideas that I had?
So I thought 'here we go', this was a perfect opportunity to do something radically different, and a notion and a concept that I had dreamed up myself. So that was where it started.
What I've been trying to do with Solas and Anthem - and there are similarities between Solas and Anthem - is to create an identifiable Ronan Hardiman sound with these albums. Because I'm now trying to compete - and I don't mean that this was a premeditated marketing formula. But I was conscious that instrumental and semi-instrumental music could sometimes be very unidentifiable and meandering, and I was conscious that I wanted to have a very distinctive voice.
The piano being my main instrument, I'd like that to be a significant element in the sound, and I'd been doing work with this vocalist Leslie Dowdall and she had a very distinctive sound. So those were the two, if you like, signature sounds that I felt that if I focused on those and then developed everything around those it would be a good starting point, creatively as well as it would make sense when it comes to marketing.
If it comes on the radio it's immediately identifiable as my sound, and that's what I've been trying to do. And then the world is your oyster, just put anything in around that to keep it varied and interesting, but it was a good creative challenge to set those parameters.
Q: And now your second solo album 'Anthem', which was to be titled Ora at one time I believe (how come the change of name?) is about to be released in the US. Tell me about that. Is it a direct follow-up to Solas, part of a series of albums, or another new direction?
A: Yes, it was originally entitled Ora, again, like Solas it was to have a number of different interpretations in the title. I suppose the main difference on Anthem is that there are a couple of songs which I hadn't included on Solas - that is, when I say songs I mean full vocal songs.There's three on Anthem, and as such, in discussing how we would go about marketing the sound, the record company felt that the music had much more pop-orientation than the last album, and as such the title should reflect that.
At the time I was very uncomfortable with it because a title is very important to me - you don't have visuals to work with and you need something to conjure up the mental pictures. Ora was a very evocative type of title, but one of the tracks was called Anthem, and the literal interpretation of Anthem being 'uplifting' and 'songs of joy', and the feedback from Solas was that I was finding people were getting tremendously uplifting, spiritual dimensions from the music, so I felt that it would have the same important interpretation, a title like Anthem, and also serve the market requirements and be an
immediately understandable title.
Q: Was there originally a track called Ora?
A; No, there wasn't. No, it was just a general sort of title.
Q: And where was the CD cover photography done? Was it Brittas Bay? [In Co, Wicklow, Ireland.] I think it would be nice for people to know.
A: Yes, it was Brittas. And this shot here [on the front] I think looks like the Sahara! Good shot.
Q: Do you sense an evolving style in your work? If so, where do you feel it is going? Do you tend to create more classical pieces as you progress? I have only heard a teaser of your Millennium composition Silver Swans but even in that I was aware of a very symphonic quality and I wonder if that is reflective of your development as a composer or simply what the commission required?
A: Well at the moment I see the Solas and Anthem projects as something that I still have lots of ideas for -- to develop that sound that is identifiably me.In terms of going in one particular direction, whether it's classical, traditional, I don't really, I like to keep my mind open. Even with these solo projects, I still view myself as a 'composer for hire', so if I take on a film project it's important to take on board what the directors and producers want, also to protect my own creativity. So I'm totally open to developing in whatever direction suits the project.
Q: I did notice with the sample piece of Silver Swans from your website a symphonic quality coming into the music, and I wonder if that is something that comes to a composer with time?
A: Yes, possibly. But I see. Certainly with my solo album projects, I see it going more and more down the pop route. I'm fascinated with that.I'm in love with the technology end of production, all the things you can do. But you're right -- there's nothing quite like the sense of fulfillment of hearing a score being performed by a full orchestra. There's nothing like that dynamic.
And there are classical elements incorporated in Anthem - particularly Salve. That track has an enormous choral element, and I do see opportunities for the next album, doing more interesting things. And there's another track, Ancient Lands, which quite orchestral, but it's not something I feel I'm being drawn into. Just the musical dynamic of a full orchestra is a very powerful tool in the overall construction of this type of music.
Q: It must have been a thrill to receive the Official Irish Government commission to compose the Irish Millennium music. Tell me how it came about and where and when the premiere of the music took place?
A: It took place actually on the Pat Kenny Show, Kenny Live! [on Irish television.] The plans of the Millennium Committee changed, and the priorities changed, but there will eventually be a CD towards the end of the year, some sort of corporate packaging, but that's as far as it's gone.
Q: But it will come? Silver Swans is too good, it cannot be lost!
A: No, no - well, it's like Ancient Lands, that started life as a TV commercial five years ago!
Q: Really? And there are shades of Feet of Flames 2000 in there too! You're aware of that?
A: Well, it was written before any of that. It was written in 1995 for the National Lottery commercial on TV.
Q: Is Silver Swans a single piece, or a suite, or something else? What was the brief you were given for it and when can we expect to be able to have it out on CD?
A: It was a single piece. They had this notion about taking an area or particular building and being inspired to write a piece of music around it.The initial idea was that they would have me and two or three other composers write, inspired by landmark places and there would be a nice big TV presentation, but it all changed. It was a lovely idea, with big plans, very spectacular, but it never came to fruition.
So anyway, they had a list of places and one of the areas that appealed to me was Islandbridge up on the canal - I suppose the canal because it was territory I knew well from Waterways, and I liked the idea of revisiting it. Also, there's a community of swans that have lived there since the canal was constructed, and that was the inspiration. I went along with a swan expert, who was on first name terms with them, very knowledgeable!
Q: The Silver Swans sample I have heard has also a very ethereal quality about it, and I notice there is a repeated and extensive spiritual flavor to many of your compositions. Are you aware of this, and are you a very spiritual person?
A: I'm not consciously a spiritual person, but I think I'm learning as much about myself as anything else from the compositions and people's reactions to them, particularly with the Solas projects because that's something that just came from the heart, not like Lord of the Dance, My Friend Joe or Waterways.I mean you have to deliver something from your soul but you're also working to a brief that has a predetermined set of parameters, so the solo projects, Solas and Anthem, have been an amazing sort of journey for me.
I am discovering things about myself and my own creativity - in fact I've written a little bit about it on the sleeve of the Anthem CD. This is music I love -- it's coming from the heart, it's pure, and it's more challenging from that point of view, because when I'm the only person I have to satisfy, you know, you tend to be a lot tougher on yourself!
But I don't have independent spiritual beliefs.. I do get fulfillment from music. I get huge fulfillment from it, but the only spirituality in life I can really identify with is those moments when you're out, oh, running, or cycling, there is something spiritual about that, you're totally alone, you're with the elements, and there is the natural 'high' you get from the physical excursion of what you're doing, and it does have a direct impact on my creativity.
Apparently there is a link there, and probably a spiritual link, but in a way I don't really want to understand it too much because, I suppose being creative, there's an inherent insecurity and you're always terrified that you won't be able to do it, on the next piece. And it's an essential insecurity, I think, because it drives you, you know, telling yourself 'of course you can do it!' and you work and work and then it always happens. But that insecurity's always there, and I am discovering more about myself. Maybe it happens naturally as you get older anyway.
Q: Is it to produce that spiritual sound quality that you use the human voice like another musical instrument rather than for true word-lyrics? How do you come up with the 'jabberwocky' language of say the High Priests' chant in Feet of Flames?
A: Well I'm not a lyricist and that's how it started! But using phonetics in music is not a new idea, and with Solas and Anthem, and the High Priests, it was something that I was keen to do because I felt that if we had lyrics it would be just too complicated, that it would be too literal and would ruin some of the magic to give a tangible meaning - particularly to the High Priests, as that was such a powerful visual spectacle that if they were going to sing, what would they sing about?It would give them more of a role than they should have. I discussed it in detail with Michael, the theatrical and dramatic aspect of it and we both agreed that it should be the impact of the sound and what they looked like.
Q: Many people think that "Dun" is the name of an actual group, but we know that it was made up. How did that come about? Are any of those singers on "Anthem"?A: They were just a group of individual, handpicked singers. But it was decided that it would be less complicated to credit them on the CD if they had a name, so that was where 'Dun' came from. They do feature on Anthem, on the track Salve and also on Ancient Lands.
Q: You have mentioned before appreciating New Age composers. Which are you personal favorites?
A: I like Yanni, I like John Tesh, Jim Brickman, and going back a bit Mike Oldfield and Vangellis - they'd be more electronic composers but they have their feet in the New Age camp as well. Vangellis would be one of my heroes of course.You can purchase Anthem for a special discounted price by clicking here.
Check out the following works by Ronan Hardiman!
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