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Sean RiadaSean O'Riada (1931 - 1971) was a composer and band-leader Enfant Terrible John Reidy (Sean O'Riada) was born on 1st August 1931 in Adare in County Limerick. He was educated at St Finbar's College, Farranferris. He played the fiddle and studied classics at University College Cork, graduating in 1952. In the same year he became assistant director for Radio ireann. He married Ruth Coughlan in 1953. During the evening he played piano with dance bands. In 1955 something must have snapped inside him. He abandoned his prestigious job, his wife and his newborn son Peadar. He moved to Italy and France and adopted a wild bohemian lifestyle. While studying composition under Aloys Fleischman he seems to have acquired the idea that he was a daring avant-garde composer. He drank heavily and acquired a passion for expensive fast cars. Over the next ten years he wrote several orchestral pieces called "Nomos". The third was left incomplete and some of the others took years to finish. If this was meant to establish his reputation as the Stravinsky of Ireland, it failed abysmally. None of them were publicly performed more than once. A new birth Ruth went in pursuit of John and discovered him in poverty in Paris. She persuaded relatives to give them money and brought him back to Ireland where he became musical director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin for five years. At about this time he changed his name from John Ready to Sean O'Riada. As a classical composer his real strength was for music of the theatre or film. He wrote music for a documentary film by George Morrison called "Mise Eire" ("I am Ireland") in 1959. It is about the founding of the Irish Republic. It has repeatedly been used in other documentaries and is available on CD, together with other film music - "Saoirse" (1960) and "An Tine Bheo" ("The Living Fire"). The recording is conducted by Sean himself. These works combine Irish tunes and "sean-ns" (old style) songs with an orchestral arrangement. Ralph Vaughan Williams had already done this sort of thing with English folk music, but in the 1950s Irish music was still held in low regard in Irish middle class families. His first attempt to combine Irish song with the classical tradition was in 1958 when an Irish radio station in Cork commissioned a short work. "Mire Eire" brought him national acclaim and allowed him to start a series of programmes on Irish radio called "Our Musical Heritage". He said that one should listen to sean-ns either as a child would listen or as if they were songs from India. Ceoltoiri Chualann Between 1961 and 1969 Sean O'Riada was leader of a group called Ceoltir Chualann. Although they played in concert halls dressed in a black suits with a white shirts and black bow ties, they played traditional songs and tunes. An ordinary ceilidh band or show-band would have musicians who competed with each other to grab the attention of the audience. Ceoltoiri Chualann played sparse lucid arrangements. Sean sat in the middle at front playing bodhran, a hand-held frame-drum. This was an instrument that had almost died out, being played only by small boys in street parades. Ceilidh bands generally had jazz-band drum-kits. O'Riada also wanted to use the clarsach or wire-strung harp in the band, but as these were as yet unavailable, he played the harpsichord instead - the nearest sound to a clarsach. Unknown to O'Riada, Irish folk music was being played in ensemble-style in London pubs, but for most people of Ireland this was the first time they heard these tunes played by a band. The membership of Ceoltoiri Chualann overlapped with membership of The Chieftains, so it surprising that the six albums they recorded are not better known. They recorded the soundtrack of the film "Playboy of the Western World" (original play by John Millington Synge) in 1963. Their last public performance was in 1969, and issued as the album "O'Riana Sa Gaiety". Final years In 1964 O'Riada moved to Cil Aodha in West Cork, an Irish-speaking area. Sean demanded that his wife learn to speak the language within three months. He established Cor C Aodha, a male voice choir. Perhaps he finally realised in 1966 that we was never going to be an avant-garde composer. He turned toward church choral music, including "Aiffean 2" (premiered posthumously in 1979). Other works include "Five Greek Epigrams" and "Holdlerin Songs". In 2002 Kate Bush recorded his song "Mn na eireann" on the compilation album "Common Ground". He did a setting of the poetry of Thomas Kinsella, who returned the favour by praising O'Riada in verse. He became involved in Irish politics and was a friend of several influential leaders. Sean and Ruth both drank regularly at a local pub which still advertises itself as his being his local. He drove his Jaguar while drunk and was involved in several accidents, injuring only himself. He suffered sclerosis of the liver. He was flown to King's Hospital, London for treatment and died there on third October 1971. He is buried in St Gobnait's church, Ballyvourney, County Cork. Willie Clancy played at his funeral. A recent biography is "Sean O Riada: His Life and Work" by Thomas O'Canainn (Collins Press, 2003) Riada, Sean Riada, Sean
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