It's interesting to talk to pianist Hugh Tinney about his increased involvement with contemporary music. For him it's linked to his decision to move back to Dublin from London, forsaking his concentration on a solo career for a mode of working that appeals to him for its greater richness of social interaction.
With a new presence as a teacher and a chamber musician - he's been a regular at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry - he's attached himself also to the community of contemporary music. Over the past 18 months he's premiered pieces by Donnacha Dennehy and Raymond Deane, and on Thursday he begins an eight-concert tour with the Irish Chamber Orchestra which includes a new concerto, Limena, specially commissioned from the Belgrade-resident Belfast composer Ian Wilson.
Wilson, says Tinney, "took a very definite decision to write a non-virtuoso piece, non-glitzy, atmospheric" and to get away from the idea of the concerto as a contest between soloist and orchestra. This is confirmed by Wilson, who says he knew and admired Tinney's playing. He recalls a big Liszt performance he heard at Bantry last year as exemplifying the side of Tinney's musical character that he chose not to exploit. He's tried to keep the piece to the 16minute length which ICO manager John Kelly was "adamant it should be". He has ciphered letters from Tinney's name as structural points into the piece, and says the very title, Limena, is a Serbian word for tin or tinny. (Much to his surprise, he says, Tinney, who has a Bosnian friend, spotted this.) News of the Omagh bomb broke as Wilson was working on the piece, and "although I didn't want it to be overt, that certainly had an influence in the second part".
Limena will be premiered at the University Concert Hall in Limerick on Thursday by the ICO directed by Fionnuala Hunt (see listings for concert details). The full programme tours to Wexford (Friday 5th), Cork (Saturday 6th), Portmagee (Sunday 7th), Sligo (Wednesday 10th), Tullamore (Thursday 11th), Dundalk (Saturday 13th), and Dublin (Sunday 14th, at IMMA).
