Soprano steps outside the zone
One of Ireland’s best-known soprano singers, Celine Byrne, says she is “inspired” by her surroundings after travelling to Cavan to work with Belturbet-based songwriter and music producer, Don Mescall.
The Kildare native most recently stayed at Mescall’s Quivvy Church home and recording studio while planning pre-production for a new album she is currently working on.
Byrne, who made her operatic debut as Mimì in Scottish Opera's 2010 production of La bohème, and has performed extensively throughout Europe as well as in the United States, China, Russia and Mexico, tells the Celt: “[Mescall] is a bit of a perfectionist. Usually I’d travel up and down in one day, but we had a lot of work to get done. Right now it’s only a demo, and this will be recorded by an orchestra, but I wanted to make sure everything is right. We’ve discovered a lot of things during this process. It’s more than just choosing a song and recording it.”
Byrne joins an ever growing and illustrious list of celebrated musicians quietly coming to work while overlooking Killylea Lough. The space, and the town of Belturbet, Byrne says have been equally “welcoming”.
When the Celt visits the verdant green of summer is beginning to bloom, and the air is filled with soothing nature sounds. From behind the gothic revival arched front door Byrne’s voice can be clearly heard filtering through from the downstairs recording booth. From behind bank of screens featuring various audio levels and suite of buttons, Mescall alters the resonant as required.
“To come here to work is amazing. It’s been a dream of mine to live in a converted church. To have [Mescall] here, almost on my doorstep, is brilliant. If I was going to London or anywhere else it would be impossible because I wouldn’t be able to give so much of my time. So I’m inspired by being here.”
She still remembers her first time driving out to Quivvy, along the winding narrow rural roads before hitting the hump-backed bridge. “I thought I was going to the wrong place. I started questioning the sat nav,” she laughs.
“Everyone says it, there is a feeling when you come over that bridge,” interjects Mescall.
“For sure,” agrees Byrne.
The song being worked on there and then by Byrne and Mescall is one of his own called ‘If I’d have known’. It was originally written by the Limerick man for the ‘Queen of Power Ballads’ Céline Dion.
“Now it’s being sung by a different Celine,” says Mescall.
Another song the pair have worked on is Greek singer Nana Mouskouri’s ‘Only Love’, a song Byrne says she has “loved since childhood”.
With her current project Byrne is looking to “step outside the zone” artistically, willing herself to take on song and vocal challenges not habitually of the operatic oeuvre. A former first-prize winner of the prestigious Maria Callas Grand Prix, Byrne has sung with world-renowned tenors José Carreras, Roberto Alagna and Joseph Calleja, and now feels confident she’s earned enough respect to “try something a little different” in a cross-over style.
“They’re songs sung in an operatic style, but not necessarily operatic. I have always loved musical theatre for instance, and I try to lend my ‘normal’ voice to some songs. We are known as a land of scholars and saints, and prize winners for literature. So we are well versed as nation in the arts, the Sean Nós style and all of that. But something that isn’t and hasn’t come to the fore as much is our classical style and classical arts,” says Byrne.
But she adds: “[Classical arts is] becoming more accessible now, and what makes it accessible is not that they feel comfortable going to an opera or ballet, but that they feel comfortable going to an opera that an artist they know is performing in. That’s what I want to try hone in on.”