Kerry tenor Gavan Ring spoke to David Hennessy ahead of a special St Patrick’s Day recital at London’s Wigmore Hall.
Kerry opera star Gavan Ring is coming to London for a ‘special’ St Patrick’s Day performance.
He is coming to Wigmore Hall accompanied by pianist Fiachra Garvey for a recital of Evocations of Home and Exile.
The recital explores themes of belonging, displacement and the universal human search for home.
Gavan trained at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio in London and was a Jerwood Young Artist at the 2012 Glyndebourne Festival Opera and second prize winner at the 2013 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition.
In 2020, Gavan transitioned from baritone to tenor, quickly establishing himself on the international stage.
Gavan chatted to the Irish World ahead of his appearance at Wigmore Hall.
Are you looking forward to this special St Patrick’s Day recital?
“Can’t wait for it.
“This is a recital that has been on the books now for about two years and it’s obviously incredibly special being in London on St Patrick’s Day.
“As we know there are so many Irish people in London.
“The diaspora there is extensive.
“In many respects London, like New York, is almost like a second home for Irish people.
“I know I feel that way about London because obviously I come to work there quite a bit.
“This recital is going to be very special and it’s one that’s very close to my heart because it’s a celebration of Irish art song and it’s a celebration of British art song as well.
“It’s a meeting of the two traditions.
“One of the first song cycles that I’ll be performing is a UK premiere of a piece called Ballads of a Bogman.
“Those of your readers who are of a Kerry persuasion will know of the great poet Sigerson Clifford who was from Cahersiveen and wrote a wonderful collection of poetry in the 1950s of the same name.
“I suppose the whole feeling of that poetry is the spirituality, the history, the mythology, the geography of Kerry and of the landscape there, of everything that it represents both for Kerry people and more.
“I suppose it’s like a little microcosm of that feeling of what it means to be Irish and that love of home and that pull of origin that we all feel.
“That’s the first song cycle which will be very special.
“As I say it’s a UK premiere written by a fantastic composer from Belfast by the name of Stephen McNeff.
“South Kerry will be on tour on 17 March in Wigmore Hall.
“And then we’ll have the wonderful Songs of Travel by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
“The themes are very similar to what we would associate with the great spiritual loves of Irish people: The love of outdoors, the love of the landscape, that wanderlust that we all have as Irish people because we’ve gone out into the world and we’ve told people our stories from time immemorial.
“That song cycle is very much of that tradition as well.
“It’s a feast of song that we’ll be giving and I suppose if the audience are happy enough, we might have a few encores as well, a few nice pot boiling Irish tunes that we all love, the likes of The Kerry Dance and My Lagan Love and a few more of them as well.
“I’m really looking forward to it.
“It’s going to be very special, a special day to be Irish.
“Obviously every Saint Patrick’s Day in London is a very special day to be Irish but I think this is going to be very unique in that it’s not every Saint Patrick’s day you get an opportunity to celebrate classical music in a very Irish way.”
The themes of home and exile will be very poignant on St Patrick’s Day in London..
“Absolutely.
“As Irish people we all feel that because I come from a generation of people that I suppose was fortunate enough to be able to have stayed in Ireland.
“Now an awful lot of my friends after the economic crash, in particular, would have emigrated themselves so it’s still very much part of our trajectory.
“But being an opera singer, you can’t but emigrate even if it’s for short periods because it’s an international business so you’re pulled here, there and everywhere all around the world to ply your trade.
“Irish people are at home around the world no matter where they go because of our nature, our open heartedness, our open mindedness, our love of our fellow human beings, our love of music, our love of craic, our love of a few pints. We have a great reputation in that regard but I think Irish people all over the world we all have special affinities with the places that we’re from and I suppose in greater or lesser degrees we always have to live with that tension of being pulled from where we grew up, where we’re from and where our spiritual home is.
“We love nothing better than to actually be able to return there.
“This feast of song that myself and the wonderful Wicklow pianist Fiachra Garvey have prepared is something which I suppose tugs on the heartstrings of those feelings for Irish people and makes us reflect on it in a very novel and unique way which I think will resonate very deeply with Irish people across the spectrum.”
How did a young fella from Cahersiveen in Kerry decided to pursue a life in the opera?
“It’s a very good question.
“Cahersiveen is steeped in musical tradition from the point of view of traditional music and speaking of Sigerson Clifford, one of the first songs I ever learnt as a boy was The Boys of Barr na Sráide.
“I guess I was steeped in that traditional music scene from a very early age and I was singing traditional songs and I suppose my mother saw that I had a bit of a flair for music.
“It’s interesting because this recital is almost a metaphor for that connection or that sort of symbiosis between traditional and classical, between Ireland and England and that relationship that we have.
“I was always kind of steeped in music be it traditional and playing classical and things like that.
“I ended up getting a scholarship then to Saint Finnian’s College in Mullingar.
“There was a music scholarship that’s been run there since the 1970s and that’s where I started getting my voice trained.
“I suppose I always had a kind of an interest in opera even from a young age because my grandmother was hugely interested in it and my stepfather as well so it was always there bubbling in the background.
“I remember even when I was four or five years old hearing the Three Tenors for the first time.
“I think my mother played a tape in the car.
“It was Nessun Dorma and I was just spellbound.
“I was like, ‘What is this sound?’
“My mother tells me that the following morning I was actually up on the bed- I was about five or six years old at the time- trying to emulate the sound of Pavarotti so a seed was planted very early on but it was only when I went to Saint Finnian’s, when I was going to secondary school that it was my organ teacher said, ‘God, you have a good voice there. It would be worth getting it trained’.
“So he took me for a few lessons at the beginning and then I just caught the bug.
“Everything else went to pot then: My piano, my flute lessons, my organ lessons because all I wanted to do was sing.
“All I wanted to do was invest all my time and energy into becoming an opera singer or learning how to sing classically and assimilating all the repertoire and just living and breathing it really.
“After that then I started studying with a wonderful woman: The late, great Mary Brennan in Dublin and she was the one who said to me, ‘You could do this for a living’.
“I’d enrolled in St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra.
“I trained as a primary school teacher first but then it was Mary that said, ‘Look, this is something I think you should pursue’.
“And I took her advice, and the rest is history.
“In a way, looking back on it, it was something that I feel I was always destined to do.”
You have sung at Wigmore Hall before, haven’t you sung there on St Patrick’s Day?
“Technically, yes.
“During the pandemic there was no live performances so what we did was- again it was myself and Fiacre- we actually pre-recorded a recital that went out live on the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel on 17 of March 2022 but obviously the hall was empty so it’s really nice actually to be coming back now four years later, thankfully with the pandemic behind us and being able to do it in front of a live audience.”
Have you been in London for other St Patrick’s performances before?
“I remember back in 2014 I sang on Trafalgar Square for the big celebration that they do.
“I have been in London on St Patrick’s Day on a few occasions and I know how special it is and I know how much it means to people.
“I’m sure you know Gary Dunne who used to be in charge of London Irish Centre.
“We were chatting before that.
“He says he remembers a time, and so do I as well, when being Irish in London was something that wasn’t necessarily as celebrated as it is today.
“Quite frankly maybe sometimes it was the opposite, and the idea of celebrating St Patrick’s Day on the level that it’s celebrated now in London is quite remarkable and I think that’s because of the history there.
“It probably is more poignant and it probably is more meaningful for the Irish community in London than it might be in any other major city in the world because of the fact that it is something which is only quite recent and it’s almost like a shedding of chains or a release of that pressure that the Irish community in London were under for so many years.
“To be able to do it with such gusto and to be able to do it in such a diverse and such a celebratory manner is just marvellous.
“When you’re in London on St Patrick’s Day, you really feel that.
“You feel that vibe and you can feel that in your bones that it’s very special and very poignant.”
It is all these things that make this upcoming performance so special, isn’t it?
“Coming back to the title of the recital Evocations of Home and Exile and giving ourselves a platform, a prism through which to reflect upon and delve into those two themes which so frequently occupy the minds and hearts of Irish people.
“I keep using the word special but I really, truly believe that it’s going to be just that.
“I’m so grateful to Wigmore Hall.
“Obviously the artistic director of Wigmore Hall is the wonderful John Gilhooly, a great Limerick man and I think that speaks volumes for the place of the Irish community within London as a cultural milieu, as a cultural matrix.
“The Irish community there is so highly respected, so well admired and John is obviously one of those people and I’m very grateful to him, I have to say.
“I’m very grateful for the way that he champions Irish artists and gives us a wonderful platform from which to express not just our Irishness and our love of Ireland, but also to communicate to the world in a way that maybe we mightn’t have been able to do in the past.
“Culture Ireland are supporting the event also which is great.
“And our wonderful friends at the embassy as well.
“The ambassador Martin Fraser and the wonderful Cultural Affairs Officer Kelly O’Connor are supporting the event to the hilt as well so myself and Fiachra feel very grateful and very proud that we’re standing on the shoulders of the giants that is the London Irish community.”
Evocations of Home and Exile is at Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 17 March. For more information, click here.
