Musician and composer Pat Irwin has played it all, across six decades. He’s now in Melbourne for a world premiere that draws on a type of singing made famous in the Appalachian hills.
The twang was the ticket for Pat Irwin. To this day, the New York composer, guitarist and keyboard player finds it hard to describe the feeling he got from the Ventures, the Washington group that popularised the electric guitar as a lead instrument, or from the “scary” vibrations of John Barry’s. So evocative,” he says, shaking his head in his New York studio. “It just hit me in the sweet spot.
Bright began to fall for sacred harp while studying film composing under Irwin at New York University. At one convention of more than 400 singers, “the roof felt like it was going to blow off”, the writer says. A decade later,was conceived “to capture the immersive feeling of sacred harp within a story about a family’s battle to stay together”. When Bright asked Irwin to collaborate, he sensed adventure.“I’d never it before,” Irwin says.
“It’s one thing to be a fan and know , but to actually work with him up close … he had very, very powerful and passionate ideas about what music could be … His sense of joy and curiosity is with me all the time.”
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