Ian Wilson (b. 1964) has composed over 250 works including operas, a range of orchestral and chamber music, and multimedia pieces.
His compositions have been performed and broadcast on six continents and presented at festivals including the BBC Proms, Venice Biennale and Gaudeamus and at venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. There are over 40 commercial recordings of his music available.
In 1998 he was elected to Aosdána, Ireland’s national association of creative artists, and in recent years he has been AHRB Research Fellow at the University of Ulster and “An Foras Feasa” post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Dundalk Institute of Technology as well as composer-in-association with California’s Camerata Pacifica ensemble, the Ulster Orchestra and the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. He was director of the Sligo New Music Festival from 2003 to 2011.
Ian Wilson’s music is published by G. Ricordi & Co. and Universal Edition.
About the piece
The Nightingale and the Poacher’s Gun for piccolo and soundtrack (2021)
During the early months of the Covid/Corona pandemic I spent lockdown in Međureč in south Serbia. In the (enforced) absence of motor vehicles and machinery the quietude was astounding and the full, unspoiled range of natural sounds became apparent.
Every evening a nightingale would sing in the garden so I decided to record the bird and its song. When listening back I discovered that the recording had picked up a number of distant gunshots (a poacher perhaps?).
This dichotomy between the natural birdsong and the violent man-made sounds made me think of a musical narrative whose subtitle could easily be “A brief history of humankind’s interaction with nature”: at first we tried to be in harmony with it, but then the 1st gunshot introduces the idea that we decided to try and make nature do what we want. The last section is more of a lament for what we have done to nature (but nature will still last longer than we do!).
The piece is in three sections. The first section has the piccolist imitating the nightingale as closely as possible and always immediately after the bird sings. In the 2nd and 3rd sections the performer’s music and the soundtrack go their separate ways.
The piece was originally written for Paco Varoch and I am delighted that my friend Snježana Pavićević will give the Serbian premiere.