By Paddy McCarthy
It was a night to remember last Friday evening where I attended the Irish Arts Center with my Arts & Entertainment editor Brad Balfour on my Out&About evening having been invited to celebrate Bill Whelan’s 75th birthday, wishing Bill a Happy Birthday from The Irish Examiner USA and all the staff and to thank you for your company after the show at The Irish Arts Center. It was so nice to meet Bill again after his introduction of Riverdance. Bill Whelan is a composer, musician, arranger, record producer and pianist, best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, “Riverdance,” was a seven-minute piece of original music accompanying a new take on traditional Irish stepdance that became a full-length stage production and spawned a worldwide craze for Irish traditional music and dance.
Here is a little bit about Bill as the first time I got to meet meet him was when he came over to New York City to meet publisher Niall O’Dowd of The Irish Voice when I was the Advertising Director for Niall. To make a long story short, Niall asked me where the best place was to view the videotape of the seven-minute tape of Riverdance featuring Jean Butler and Michael Flatley during the intermission of the song contest that was performed at Dublin City, which also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 1987 featuring Johnny Logan performing and representing Ireland. I was blown away after I seeing it so we viewed it a few times in Desmond’s Tavern on Park Avenue South and I gave my comments that it is just fabulous to Bill and Niall. As again, with my music background, I gave my opinion, a very positive one to them. Now again that was my 15 minutes of fame and the rest is history.
Now back to the man himself. Bill, who is a native of Limerick city, and was educated at Crescent College, gained his Bachelor of Civil Law degree at University College Dublin in 1973 and then went to King’s Inns. In 2011, Whelan was awarded the UCD Foundation Day Medal in recognition of his outstanding achievements and his contribution to Irish music worldwide. While he is best known for his “Riverdance” composition and the theatrical show of the same name, Bill has been involved in many ground-breaking projects in Ireland since the 1970s. In his autobiography, he especially mentions the major influence of James W. Flannery. As a as a producer he has worked with U2 (on their War album), Van Morrison, Kate Bush, The Dubliners, Planxty, Andy Irvine & Davy Spillane, Patrick Street, Stockton’s Wing and fellow Limerickman Richard Harris. Now what more can I say, just that I had a very nice time Out&About meeting Bill Whelan and it was also nice to meet Pauline Turley, the vice Chair of the Irish Arts Center.
Finally, I’d like to wish everyone a very Happy Independence Day holiday for Friday and the coming celebratory weekend. That’s it for this weeks Out&About, I hope to see you all next week when I’m Out&About again…