Trad’s loss is opera’s gain as MairŽad sings at Leisureland

Date Published: {J}

Traditional singing was the first calling of soprano Mairéad Buicke (pronounced Buick, as in the car), who will be a special guest with the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra when it visits Leisureland on its Spring Tour next Tuesday, March 23.

London-based Mairéad will be performing Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 as part of a programme which also includes Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and his 1812 Overture, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2.

Knoxville: Summer of 1915 paints an idyllic, nostalgic picture of the American South. The work is for voice and orchestra and the text is taken from a 1938 short prose piece by writer James Agee. The score was originally commissioned by renowned soprano Eleanor Steber, who premiered it in 1948, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

“It was written for an orchestra and soprano and it’s tricky, but Barber creates fantastic pictures and colours with the piece he was given,” says Mairéad. The singer from Newcastle West in Limerick, is currently in Dublin, rehearsing with the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, but these days she lives in London where she performs with the English National Opera.

Traditional music’s loss has been a gain for the classical world, as Mairéad has performed Verdi’s Requiem and Ravel’s Shérérazade here in Ireland with the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, while in London she has appeared in ENO operas such as The Merry Widow and Mozart’s The Magic Flute, where she played Pamina – her most significant role to date. She has performed in recitals all over the world, including in New York’s Metropolitan Club and the Aix en Provence Academy Festival in France.

“I try to create a picture for everything I do,” she explains about her approach to Knoxville: Summer of 1915. “In opera you dress up for the roles, so it’s easier go into another world, but even when I do a concert performance I create my own story.

“The scariest thing as a singer is to go up on stage as yourself, but it’s challenging and it’s good to keep yourself at it.”

Mairéad has been challenging herself since childhood. Recognised as a talented traditional singer from her early years, she took part in Fleadh Cheoil up and down the country between the ages of 11 to 14.

“Then I started having my voice trained with a singing teacher from Kerry, Áine Nic Ghabhainn. A teacher suggested to my mother that I should do it. I was initially against it, because I loved trad and sean-nós singing, but after the first session, I loved it.

“I was very lucky with my teacher. I stayed with her until I was 17 and it was fantastic to find somebody who nurtured me and introduced me to classical music in a lovely way.”

At 17 she moved to a tutor in Bandon Co Cork, which was a major commitment; in Mairéad’s Leaving Cert Year her mother drove here the 115 kilometres to Bandon every Saturday morning where the young singer studied with Robert Beare, who also taught in the Cork School of Music.

After the Leaving Cert she attended the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) where she studied for four years under the great Dr Veronica Dunne who “was amazing”.

Mairéad did a BA in music Performance at the RIAM and then went to the National Opera Studio in London, which accepts just 12 young singers every year.

“It’s like a bridge between being a student and professional work, where you are supported by British companies and have coaches and opera directors,” she says, describing the studio.

After that, she was invited to join the English National Opera, also in London, initially being taken on for a year as a ‘young singer’. She has been there now for nearly three years.

“In your first year you sing secondary roles and you understudy, and as you progress you get bigger stuff.”

Her performance as Pamina in The Magic Flute last year was a big moment in her career and a sign of her growing maturity.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.