In this week’s The Third Degree column, Paul Bradley sits down with composer Vincent Kennedy.
Hi Vincent, thank you for doing this interview. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself please?
Originally from Donnybrook, Dublin, I now live near the mountains on the city’s edge. When I was 7, in 2nd class in CBS Westland Row, I was given the opportunity to do music and it changed my life. I started on the Recorder, then at nine took up the Trumpet. We had a wonderful Concert Band, and I am still friends with many of the lads. When I was 12, I was entered into the Feis Ceoil u/18 competition and to everyone’s surprise I won. I also became the youngest member of the Irish Youth Orchestra. Aged 14, I won the senior Feis Ceoil – looking back now it was a phenomenal achievement. At 19, I was performing with the National Symphony Orchestra.
Was music always in your family, or did a single piece give you your passion?
My Dad, who sadly passed when I was 14, had a lovely singing voice. Incidentally he was a conductor…on the number 47 bus. My earliest memory is when I was three, my mother turning on the radio and I heard a piece of music that literally vibrated completely within me. I was 15 before I realised the music was the Scherzo from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. From this age I loved music.
Composing is one thing – was learning to conduct very different?
I believe both are innate. I don’t believe you can be taught composition; it’s inspirational. You can be taught about instruments and form and orchestration, but a tune is personal. In conducting, you can be taught all the mechanical aspects. You must have or develop a perfect sense of time as so much depends on the tempo. You have also to feel the music in every cell of your being and only when you are fully tuned into it can you move beyond the mechanical (waving of the hands or baton) to the highest level of expression and bring the best out of the musicians. Conducting requires confidence and control of nerves.
You’re incredibly busy, involved with disparate musical projects, from Irish Youth Orchestras to the Korean K-Orchestra. How do you manage?
I have been very lucky over the years to work in places and situations where I learnt about time management and planning. For six years I attended regular meetings at the office of Emergency Planning: lots of emergency meetings mostly to do with severe weather. I learnt so much about resilience, preparation and teamwork, and use that to plan everything to a very high level, and I am not usually fazed by unexpected turns. Part of planning is ensuring I have time to relax and exercise, although conducting is also very active. I walk and swim, meditate and pray.
How did your involvement with the Donegal Youth Orchestra come about?
In 2007 I won a commission to write music as part of the peace process for a cross-community group of young people from Derry and Donegal. The project took place over a week in Gartan, where I met some of the members of the Donegal School of Music, wonderful people like the late Sister Concepta Murphy and Mary Armitage who has become a great friend. The following year I was invited to participate in the Donegal Summer School of Music, where I was asked by the music manager of the Donegal Music Education Partnership if I would come and do a weekend course with the Donegal Youth Orchestra. Following that weekend they asked me to prepare the youth orchestra for a visit of the National Symphony Orchestra and then for the Christmas concert. I loved it so much and the people of Donegal were so welcoming I offered to come every fortnight and have been doing that since Christmas 2008.
Classical music seems to have made a small comeback in recent years. Do you have any thoughts on why that might be?
Classical music is expensive to perform at the full symphonic and Operatic level. And streaming, which pays so little, has taken the place of albums where money could be made.
So part of classical music’s popularity is driven (out of funding necessity) by concerts of film and soundtrack music and in orchestral accompaniments to pop/folk artists. And Vienna Waltz-like concerts are also very popular. And all this is good and makes audiences happy. I worry that the great orchestral music with a 700-year legacy is being pushed into the background. It is so hard for classical composers to get a premiere let alone 2nd or 3rd performances. Most professional music jobs in Ireland are funded directly or indirectly by the state – it would be great if we could develop the endowment culture of the USA for example, where wealthy individuals and companies donate to the arts. Most of our musicians are not paid enough to match their skills; most artists of all disciplines earn below the living wage. If an ill wind were to blow through the public funds again it could be disastrous. On the plus side, people can now listen to the great orchestras and opera companies and make magnificent discoveries in their own home. Though there is nothing like a live performance.
How proficient does a composer need to be with the various instruments needed for a performance?
Quite a bit. If you have an orchestra of 100 players who have been playing their instruments for an average of 30 years, that’s 3,000 years of experience. To ignore the possibilities that presents is such a waste.
The proliferation of digital scores can be dangerous because a computer synthesizer can play music that might be impossible for an instrumentalist. Aspiring composers for orchestral instruments must dedicate themselves to the study of orchestration, a discipline that requires ongoing commitment throughout their careers.Should music be part of our education from early on?
Yes. So much music education in Ireland is still dependent on inspired individuals. The problem arises when that person leaves. I would love to see a system of peripatetic teachers in every county who have full-time jobs but work across the schools of the county teaching all forms of music, singing and playing.
I assume you’re already working on other projects we might hear in the future?
Yes. During Covid I was commissioned by the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras and wrote “Hope Springs Eternal”. It was recorded individually by nearly 300 young orchestral players all over the country and their videos were put together in a collage by IAYO and released on YouTube. I’m excited that I will conduct the live premier in the National Concert Hall on February 7th. I just finished a piece to be performed in France next May and another about the life of the Pearse Family, due to be premiered around the 110th anniversary of the 1916 Rising in April 2026. In June I finished a piece that will be premiered in Virginia Tech University USA in the coming months and over the next year in Carnegie Hall.
Anything else you would like to mention?
I hand wrote a score of my music “Dreams” which has been placed in a time capsule on board the Viking Ship Sea Stallion and will remain in Roskilde Denmark for 300 years. A pod of whales turned up to a performance of my music “The Hook – A Place and A People” at the Hook Lighthouse in 2005. I share a nice honour from my old school, “Row Person of the Year” with people amongst others such as Hoteliers P.V. Doyle and Francis Brennan, composer Shay Healy, actor Cyril Cusack, Irish international footballers Jackie Carey and Ray Tracy, Fran Rooney footballer and entrepreneur, World Snooker Champion Ken Doherty and Physicist Alex Montwell. And I wish people would take the eyes from their phones a look and listen to some of the beauty of nature all around and experience the real thing.
If anyone else would like to take part in this interview, to raise a profile or an issue, please contact Paul at Dnthirddegree@gmail.com
