Ronan Guilfoyle is best known as one of the country's foremost jazz bass players, but in the past five years, he has been stretching the boundaries of his metier to encompass writing for classical and jazz musicians, together. Witness the premiere of his new work, Phantom City (music for accordian, soprano saxophone, bass guitar, and percussion) at this week's Boyle Arts Festival.
Guilfoyle's musical and family background was steeped in classical, jazz, and many other forms. "It took me a while to learn the discipline of writing for non-jazz musicians, because a jazz musician will interpret music in a certain way whereas a classical musician will only play and interpret what you actually give them," he says.
Phantom City was commissioned by Boyle Arts Festival, with funds from the New Music Commission Scheme. Without any brief, it was up to Guilfoyle to develop the piece as he saw fit. "The chamber music I've been writing over the past four years has involved a group of classical musicians and one jazz musician. In this case, what I decided to do was to write a piece with one classical musician, Dermot Dunne, and three jazz musicians - myself on bass, my brother Conor on drums, and Brendan Doyle on soprano saxophone. The title suggested itself while I was writing the music. "What struck me about the piece was the extremely urban nature of it. It has influences from jazz, of course, but also from Argentina and Eastern Europe, as well as m-based music, which is music that has been developed in Brooklyn over the past seven or eight years."
"One of the things I found quite difficult about writing music for other people is that I'm used to being in a musical situation where I have some degree of control. In Phantom City I'm actually playing myself, so I don't feel quite so nervous about it."
Phantom City will be premiered tomorrow at King House, Boyle, at 8.30 p.m. as part of the Boyle Arts Festival, which continues until Friday, August 1st. For information on other festival events, tel: 079-63085.