RTÉ Player’s on-demand Culture collection features an eclectic mix of documentaries and performances from the worlds of Music, Arts, Film & TV and Literature.
Each week, the RTÉ Player team suggest a ‘must-watch’ from the Culture collection. This week, we look at A Nation’s Voice, an open-air, free performance in 2016 which included the world première of One Hundred Years a Nation, a major new orchestral and choral work commissioned for the occasion by RTÉ from composer Shaun Davey.
On Easter Sunday, 27 March 2016, more than 1000 singers joined the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Brophy as months of preparation, planning and rehearsals all over the country came to fruition with a live broadcast of an open-air concert at Collins Barracks.
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More than 1000 voices from 31 choirs and 19 counties from Cork to Donegal joined with the full forces of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Brophy to perform One Hundred Years a Nation, which was narrated by poet Paul Muldoon. Some of the choirs were formed especially for the occasion; the singers ranged in age from 9 to those of senior citizen age, and all participating choir directors had worked closely with conductor David Brophy in advance of their individual rehearsals at local level.
Speaking of his role as composer, Davey said: "It was both a responsibility and a challenge to compose the music for A Nation’s Voice," "First, to provide a fitting setting for Paul’s evocative text, second, to write music for the choirs which is musically and vocally satisfying, and third to help find expression for a year in which the nation not only marks the past but also looks forward to the future, by including a song that contains wishes of hope for future generations."
Writer Paul Muldoon said it was a privilege to be invited to write something for such a big public occasion, but also unnerving. "Our hope is that it’s a piece that will give people something to think about as they look back on the remarkable achievements of our first century and look forward to meeting the challenges presented by the next one. Most importantly, we wanted to give people a tune they can whistle as they get on with their day".
Also on the programme was Seán Ó Riada’s Mise Éire Orchestral Suite, excerpts from The Connemara Suite by Bill Whelan, including the exhilarating An Chistín , Whelan’s playful interaction between fiddle, feet and orchestra with soloists Helena Wood, violin, Zoë Conway, fiddle, and Colin Dunne, dance percussion, and a massed choirs performance of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.
A Nation’s Voice was presented by the Arts Council and RTÉ, in association with the National Museum of Ireland, the Association of Irish Choirs and Music Generation, as part of Ireland 2016. Watch it now on RTÉ Player.
