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Exclusive Interview with Ronan Hardiman
Interview and photos by Annie from Dublin
Q: Despite the many diverse projects of your musical career the dominating ones to date of course have to be your work with Michael Flatley. For those who do not know the story, tell me how you landed that great commission.
A: It was a fortuitous sequence of events really.It started with I had heard through the industry grapevine that Michael was planning to do his own show. His split with Riverdance was big news here and in England, and he had established himself as a star. So it was like other work that I had had commissioned -- I would send in tapes of previous commissions that I had done.
I thought this show might be a good opportunity so I found out who Michael's representatives were and sent in tapes, but again, I didn't really think any more of it because there was stuff in the paper about Michael talking to Van Morrison, Lloyd Webber, and although I felt very confident that I had the creative talent to do what needed to be done I felt that there was probably another angle to this, that if he wanted to set up his own show he wanted it copperfastened with the profile of an internationally established composer, so I didn't really think I had a hope.
But out of the blue one day I got a call to say that Michael had heard the tape and wanted to meet.
Q: May we know which pieces of your music were included on that demo tape that 'sold' your work to Michael and prompted him to meet you?
A; Yes, actually I was careful about that, because I thought every other composer, every other eejit would be sending in jigs and reels, so I sent in some more orchestral stuff and I didn't put in any traditional stuff at all.I just wanted mine to stand out, and I just guessed at it - I could have been totally wrong, it could have been exactly what he didn't want. But as it happened, he was drawn to the power of the dramatic stuff. He was very focused on making Lord of the Dance a drama -- that it would be distinctive from Riverdance, and that's how it all came about.
Q: It is well known that you and Michael first met in the Westbury Hotel in Dublin, and fans love trivial details of such pieces of history, so can you tell me more about that day? I have heard there was an instant rapport between you as people. Where in the hotel did you spend that first meeting and what was it like?
A: We met briefly in the hotel, just in the lobby to the left at the top of the stairs in fact.And then Michael came out to my house and sat down with myself and Peter [Bardon, my manager], because I wanted to play Michael lots of other ideas that I had, just to copperfasten things.
He was already interested in what I was doing so I just wanted to hammer it home! Peter just left us to it, and once they went out of the room we stopped talking about music and got talking about everything else - women and drink!
Q: And once the deal was set, how did the work begin? Did it start with Michael coming to your studio and demonstrating samples of dances? You have to recall the famous tale of the pine floor for all our internet friends!
A; We discussed in great detail his vision and what he imagined for each scene, both dramatically and technically. There was a lot of talking first of all and I'd be scribbling down notes, and a few times he came out [to the house] and would tap out rhythms.At the time we were working in what is now the sitting room in the house, and after a while I began to notice these black marks and hollows in the floor! I had just sanded and worked on this pine floor myself, so I banned him from it and put down a board! But the marks are still there, as a shrine!
It was really just tempos that we needed to establish, to see if it was fast enough. Of course nothing is ever fast enough for Michael! The speed he dances at is just crazy -- unreal.
But that's how it started. We would have very involved and lengthy discussions about each piece, and I'd go away and put something together and bring it back. The formal rehearsals hadn't started at this point - I started working at the end of March and the rehearsals started the third of fourth week in April.
My objective was to get as much music written in advance of the rehearsals as possible because I knew once the rehearsals started there would be a million and one things to change-- too long, too short, too fast, too slow, we need a peak here -- you know, the whole thing was going to change anyway. Michael had an overall concept but as we got down to the details, certain things didn't work, certain things that were unexpected Did work and so on.
Q: Once the show was up and running at the Point in 1996 did you think your job was done, or were you always aware that if the show took off it would be an ongoing project?
A: I think all we were hoping for was that we would get through the first week in the Point! Coming up to opening night the first 3 or 4 nights had sold out, and then as the reviews came in the rest of the week sold out. We all had great hopes for it but the reality of the business is with such projects you never really know what way they're going to go. You just hope people are going to respond.
Q: And Dublin was a tough place to start in the circumstances, was it not?
A: Yes but I think it was a good thing, and it laid to rest a lot of unanswered questions and doubts that people had -- particularly in the media. But having said that, the reviews were very mixed here. People voted with their bottoms and it was only when it began to take off overseas that the media began to take it seriously.
Q: How many of the Lord of the Dance and Feet of Flames melodies are based on traditional pieces?
A: Lord of the Dance itself, which is based on the old Shaker hymn Simple Gifts; Whispering Wind, which Michael just loves, is from The Coolin; Anne [Buckley's] songs-- Dance of Love which is from King of the Fairies; and the band number Celtic Fire. These are pieces that Michael chose. The others are all original.
Q: Which are your own favorites?
A: Cry of the Celts is my favorite of the whole show, and Gypsy, those are my personal favorites.
Q: And there is something interesting about the arrangement and recording of Whispering Wind, isn't there?
A: Yes, because of pressures of time and travel and touring commitments Michael came in and recorded the flute part cold, completely on his own, and then afterwards I went in and added the violin and strings introduction, so he wasn't actually present when we were doing the orchestral part.
Q: When did you first hear about Feet of Flames, the first version in 1998? Was that another 'rush-job'?
A: Yes, I was coming home on the plane from New York, having spent two weeks promoting Solas, and I read about it in the paper! Which is very typical of Michael, making up his mind at the last minute!
Q: Just as well some numbers are a cappella?!
A; Yes, well Michael originally had the idea of music for his Feet of Flames solo, but I didn't agree with that - throwing away work! But I thought that solo should just be about him. And no music could keep up with him anyway!
Q: And was there, even then, talk of developing that show, or was the Feet of Flames 2000 project a complete surprise? How much time did you have on that one?
A: I had a little more time. There was no talk in '98 of launching this one as an independent touring brand, if you like. Michael was effectively retiring at that point, but there was talk of one-offs.I know Martin Flitton was very keen to do one-offs with the show because it was so spectacular -- that ending with the three-tiered hydraulic stage. People just have to see that to believe it. So it was September 1999 there was a big press launch, and the first time Michael and I met about the new show was 3 or 4 weeks before that.
Q: Will there be a new CD of the Feet of Flames 2000 music ?
A: I don't think so, no. I'm not aware of it in the planning anyway.
Q: Now the 2000 tour has ended, rumors abound about the future of the show, talk of Moscow performances in September of 2001 and a US tour, and more than once Michael has referred to the show still evolving and that it will be an entirely different show by the time it reaches the US. Can you tell me anything about all of that?
A: No, not really, other than it was changing, even after Erfurt, but not major dramatic changes, more little tweaks here and there.
Q: And when did you last see the show in fact?
A: Oh, I was at the opening night in Cologne. I had hoped to make the big one in Budapest but I wasn't able to do that, or Belfast, in the end. Things were just chaotic with the Anthem project.
Q: But if it goes back on tour and Michael wants to develop it further, would you on for going back and being part of that or are you completed snowed under with your own projects?
A: Oh yes! Absolutely, obviously depending on schedules, but yes, definitely.
Q: Michael Flatley is now embarked on his long-awaited movie, and you have mentioned on several occasions that you were working on the music with him. With the long delay, many other offers must have intruded. So has that, in fact, come to be?
A: No, well, not so far! The movie was scheduled to be in post-production before Christmas [2000] and there was no way I could do that, but I'm not sure that is now the case, so it may be possible and I don't know in fact.
Q: You and Michael Flatley obviously work extremely well together and make a great team. Have you talked of taking on further projects together in the future? For instance, I know you admire his tremendous talent as a flute-player as much as anyone - can the two of you be persuaded to produce a CD of flute music together at some stage? That is something the fans clamor for constantly, preferably one of the music composed by the two of you. Have you considered such a project?
A: We did have discussions about three years ago regarding a CD featuring Michael's flute playing - but his touring and my production commitments meant we had to put the project on the back burner.
Q: I have seen your own solo music in on-stage performance twice - once on the Late Late Show tribute to Michael on RTE television when Far and Away was so exquisitely choreographed by the Cos Ceim [spelling please!] Dance School, and once when you performed Heaven live with your band on the Bibi Show on RTE, and both were very memorable events. Instrumental music has proved highly successful on-stage with artists such as Secret Garden and Yanni. Have you any thoughts to put together a tour sometime, taking your own music to the stage in that way?
A: I would like to do it. There are no plans to do a concert tour at the moment but I will be doing TV performances in America [in October].When I know the exact schedule I will post it on my website.
I'm doing one appearance on the Home Shopping Network in Florida, - they're doing an hour Special on me, Solas and Anthem. I'm doing another [appearance] on PBS, I'm doing CNN Worldbeat, I think that's it at the moment but it's all changing and being added to as we speak!
Q: Many fans clamor constantly for sheet music of your work. Is there any chance of that becoming available in the near future?
A: Actually I only get the odd request for tracks from Solas, most are for Lord of the Dance, and that is available. It's very time-consuming [to do sheet music], and when I'm writing I'd be writing string lines, woodwind lines, brass, and that can change the melody line, so trying to condense it into a piano arrangement is quite difficult.
Q: Finally, you must now have offers coming to you from all over the world. Do you see yourself diversifying even further in the future or do you have a strong desire to remain rooted to, if not specifically Irish projects, then commissions which enable you to maintain an Irish character in your music?
A: Not necessarily, no. I guess now I'm known internationally as a kind of Celtic composer but before Lord of the Dance I was doing anything from rock to classical to jazz - I was a composer for hire.But what I will be concentrating on at the moment and will be for the next 2 or 3 years is my solo projects -- these albums, Solas and Anthem and the next one. I've had this notion, of the type of music that I'm doing now for a long time so it's a great opportunity when I got the offer from Universal Records to put it together and see it coming to fruition. So I'm really enjoying that now.
Q: Do you see it as a trilogy of albums, or is there more?
A: Oh, much more. Even for the next one I have loads of ideas to expand, and between Anthem and Solas I think there's a progression there.And I don't think Anthem would have happened the way that it did had not certain things come up as result of the success of Solas - like the songs, Heaven being a Top Ten hit in France. That gave me the idea that not only could these pieces be semi-vocals on instrumentals but full songs as well, so that's why there are 3 songs on Anthem as well.
So that intrigues me as well, without fundamentally altering the concept and the style of music that I've created it was an interesting way of expanding it and now I have some ideas for the next album to bring that further.
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