Tenor Gavan Ring and pianist Louise Thomas will give a further performances of ‘Ballads of a Bogman’ at the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church, in Cahersiveen, Kerry. This is part of an ongoing project initiated by the Contemporary Music Centre in Dublin. Further details, tickets etc at this link.
This performance will be recorded for later broadcast by RTÉ Lyric FM and is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Kerry County Council, RTÉ Lyric FM and the Daniel O'Connell Summer School.
Gavan Ring and Louise Thomas
Based on Ballads of a Bogman by Irish poet Sigerson Clifford, these songs explore the nature of identity and questing. With roots in Kerry in Western Ireland, the poems and songs relate a troubled world of a newly formed Irish state and the Travellers who populated its roads.
Ballads of a Bogman
In 2023 the project will be expanded and adapted into staged format. The Irish premiere will be at the Wexford Festival.
Watch the fantastic new Promo video, see beautiful arial shots of Cahersiveen and hear Gavan and Louise by following this link.
Gavan Ring writes…
Following the world premiere in Los Angeles and the Irish and European premiere in Cork earlier this year, Cahersiveen tenor Gavan Ring together with acclaimed pianist Louise Thomas present the homecoming of 'Ballads of a Bogman - The Sigerson Clifford Song Cycle' - a terrific new work by composer Stephen McNeff based on the poetry of Cahersiveen's Sigerson Clifford on
16 October 2022 at the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church at 7pm.
Known as 'The Bard of Iveragh', Clifford was born in Cork City and was raised in Cahersiveen, County Kerry. 'Ballads of a Bogman - The Sigerson Clifford Song Cycle' forms a selection of texts from Clifford's seminal 1955 collection of poetry of the same name. Working with themes such as the revolutionary period, emigration, rural decline and the travelling community in Ireland, McNeff has set Clifford's poetry here to the most exquisite and poignant music, capturing beautifully the spiritual, historical and social fabric of early-twentieth-century rural Ireland through the prism of life in South Kerry at the time.
Cahersiveen in Western Ireland (original photo)