Riverdance, The Seville Suite, Riverdance on Broadway, The Roots of Riverdance, The Well Below the Valley
Caracena bill whelan composer
Bill Whelan, (born 22 May 1950 in Limerick, Ireland) is an Irish composer and musician. He is best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, Riverdance, was a seven-minute display of traditional Irish dancing that became a full-length stage production and spawned a worldwide craze for Irish dancing and Celtic music and also won him a Grammy. It was released as a single in the UK in 1994, credited to "Bill Whelan and Anúna featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra". It reached number 9 and stayed in the charts for 16 weeks. The album of the same title reached number 31 in the album charts in 1995.
The Seville Suite, which was inspired by the exploits of Aodh Rua Ó Dónaill from The Battle of Kinsale in 1601 until his arrival in Galicia to the welcome of The Spanish Earl of Caraçena. In addition to the orchestra, The Seville Suite includes Celtic Music on Uilleann Pipes, accordion, bodhrán, fiddle as well as Galician harp, whistles and pipes.
The Spirit of Mayo, performed by an 85-piece orchestra in Dublin's National Concert Hall and featuring a powerful Celtic drum corps and a 200 strong choir and choral group Anúna.
Whelan's Celtic/Orchestral release, The Connemara Suite, features the Irish Chamber Orchestra along with soloists Zoë Conway, Morgan Crowley, Colin Dunne (Dance Percussion) and Fionnuala Hunt.
In theatre, Whelan received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for his adaption of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore. He wrote original music for 15 of W. B. Yeats's plays for Dublin's Abbey Theatre and his film credits include, Dancing at Lughnasa (starring Meryl Streep), Some Mother's Son, Lamb (starring Liam Neeson) and the award-winning At The Cinema Palace.
Career timeline
Whelan's lifetime of musical endeavours include:
1970 – Composes score for the film Bloomfield.
1978 – Member of the jazz-rock band Stacc, who release a single on CBS.
1979 – Joins Planxty on keyboards.
1981 – Timedance, composed by Whelan and Dónal Lunny, and performed by Planxty, features in the interval of Eurovision. Timedance released as a Planxty record.
1983 – Whelan produces "The Refugee" on the U2 album War.
1992 – Produces and performs on Stockton's Wing's The Crooked Rose for the Tara Music label.
1993 – Composes the orchestral work The Spirit of Mayo.
1994 – Composes Riverdance for interval segment of the Eurovision Song Contest. The segment is an unprecedented success and spins off into the long-running stage show.
1995 – Invited to serve on the Government Task Force set up by Minister Michael D. Higgins.