John Gibson, the Dublin-born classical pianist who has been lecturing at the Cork School of Music since 1982, has just released a third CD of his compositions, which is likely to add to his steadily growing international audience. One of Ireland's leading piano composers, his music has been heard throughout Europe and he has performed in Japan, the US, Russia, Israel and China.
His 1980 composition Nijinski was awarded the Nijinski Medal by the Polish Ministry of Arts in 1997. The Dublin Arts Festival and the Cork International Choral Festival have also recognised his talent.
To date, his prodigious career has included study under Prof Erik ThenBergh in Munich, Eduardo del Pueyo in Spain, Roberto Szidon in Switzerland, Guido Agosti in Italy and Valentina Schubinskaya in Moscow.
While life nowadays revolves mostly around concerts at home and teaching at the Cork college, where he is also co-ordinator of the MA course in composition, composing remains a large part of his life, he says. He is currently working on a chamber opera based on the biblical episode of Judith and Holofernes. The composer's third CD, Mass of Mercy and Compassion, has just been released. As well as the Mass, it features a Prayer of Thanksgiving, several psalm settings and Nijinski. With typical modesty, he says it would be rather nice for it to become a popular success.
The proceeds of one of his previous recordings, Aislingi Ceoil; Reflections in Water, went to the L'Arche community in Cork with which he has a special affinity.
Gibson also speaks frankly about manic depression, from which he suffers The first bout occurred in 1985 when he was performing works by Messiaen in the John Field Room at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. He got through but it was, he says, a difficult and frightening experience. He has been hospitalised on several occasions but has learned to deal with the condition through counselling and medication.
He quotes the philosophy of a fellow sufferer: "He looks at the period of the illness as a breakthrough, not a breakdown. It seems to me to be a nice way of making sense of it," he adds.