THINK of subjects like dark matter and genetics and the sound of music doesn't naturally come to mind but Belfast-born composer Deirdre Gribbin can hear the melody in almost anything.
She has collaborated with scientists, health professionals and even an astrophysicist for her award-winning compositions but one of the most meaningful has been based on a striking poem about animal mortality written by her young son, Ethan, who has Down's Syndrome, and which had its public debut earlier this month for International Women's Day.
Entitled Grieving Elephants, the music was played live at St Peter's Church in London's Eaton Square before being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 – it can still be heard on BBC iPlayer – and was part of a series of commissions for a 'Seven Ages of Women' event featuring the work of seven high-profile female composers.
"They asked us to choose a piece that was meaningful to each of us and I couldn't think of anything more meaningful than Ethan's poem," says the multi-award-winning mum-of-one, who has been working at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Co Monaghan in preparation for the West Cork Music Festival in June.
"The words are so beautiful, so I really wanted to keep the melody quite simple. The result is reminiscent of traditional Irish folk air; it's very free."
Describing her talented 13-year-old as a "high-functioning" child with Down's Syndrome who likes to write poems – she has over 30 in a special book – Deirdre says this one stood out for its empathy and "big topics" such as climate change and animal cruelty.
"People with Down’s often have trouble with their speech, so natural conversation can be difficult, but Ethan has this incredible ability to write poetry," says the proud mum and recent MIA (Major Individual Award) recipient from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. "I think it's because he thinks quite visually before he forms his sentences.
"He had been asked at school to write a poem about an animal and I was thinking he would choose a dog or something. I thought it was a very beautiful poem and quite short, so it didn't take me long to put it to music – about a month in total.”
Ethan attended the special concert in London with his mum when the piece had a visible effect on rapt members of the audience.
“People were quite moved by the fact Ethan had inspired the music,” says Deirdre, who now spends “three thirds” of her time in London and the rest in Ireland where she says she finds it easier to compose her music. “He kind of stole my thunder – he does that a lot; he's very endearing."
Having a son with Down's Syndrome naturally led the composer to feel "very connected" to the subject of genetics and led to the development of several musical compositions, including Hearing Your Genes Evolve, which featured in the Belfast Science Festival last year.
"When Ethan was born we were given this faded, photocopied piece of paper with a bit about Down's Syndrome written on it," Deirdre recalls. "I immediately thought, 'Well, what does that mean?' so I started to embrace the topic and get to know what the science behind it really meant.
“As composer-in-residence at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge, I was working with all these scientists at the very top of their field when I met Dr Sarah Teichmann and we came up with the idea of trying to convey, through a string quartet, the complexity of human genetics. It was fascinating to create a form of dialogue between music, science and an audience."
Hearing Your Genes Evolve had its world premiere in London in 2013 and has led to further major projects, including The Dark Gene (with Dr Teichmann) – a finalist in the 2016 Berlinale Film Festival – and, currently, a new documentary with a film-maker for the Wellcome Trust on the development of a young person, from a genetic point of view. It is due for release later in the year.
A music graduate of Queen's University Belfast, Deirdre studied her "passion" to compose rather than play – although she is an accomplished musician herself on flute and piano – at the Guildhall School of Music in London, where she unexpectedly found herself drawn back to her roots in troubled west Belfast.
"When I left Belfast, I thought that was it, I had left Northern Ireland behind me and I wouldn't look back," she says, "but, as I started to write larger-scale works, I realised that my formative years and growing up in Northern Ireland had been a huge inspiration.
"I composed a piece called Tribe based around the Drumcree stand-off in Portadown when the Orange Order wanted to march down the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road, and then I had an amazing opportunity when the Ulster Orchestra commissioned a piece to celebrate its 35th anniversary which I had self-titled, Peace Anthem.
"It was programmed to be performed in Belfast but then 9/11 happened and the orchestra was invited to New York to play the piece, so it had incredible resonance being played there after the terrorist attacks. It was one of the most powerful performances I've ever had and brought about one of those momentous moments that you have, maybe once or twice, in your lifetime."
A Fulbright, Churchill and Leverhulme Fellow who has worked with world-famous orchestras and operatic companies, as well as for film and TV, today much of Deirdre's work is in the health sector, particularly with her charity, Venus Blazing Trust, which provides musical and theatrical opportunities for young people with learning disabilities.
Next up for her is a trip back to New York in April to have her acclaimed Kindersang composition performed – first created last year to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport project which helped thousands of German Jewish children flee Nazi persecution during the Second World War.
Based on the poems of Kindertransport survivor Lotte Kramer, the work has acute resonance for the composer who met the "wonderful" 97-year-old and heard her harrowing story first-hand of how she was separated from her parents and brought to the UK as a young child.
“It was very moving and had a great impact,” says Deirdre. “My husband is Jewish and Lotte’s experiences made me think of Ethan again. If he had been born in Germany at that time, being half-Jewish and having a disability, well, he wouldn’t have fared very well. It makes you very thankful.”
Part of her Arts Council MIA , she will record Kindersang: Outsider Child in New York and then complete her composition on Dark Matter, working with astrophysicist Professor Priya Natarjan. The result, Dark Matter Hunting, will be performed at the West Cork Music Festival this summer, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Hubble telescope.
“If you’ve ever looked at the night sky in a completely dark environment, you can’t see your hand in front of your face,” she says. “There is a sense of how small we are in the universe. What is dark matter? What is a black hole? I’m really interested to find out more; it's an exciting topic.”
GRIEVING ELEPHANTS
By Ethan Stein
They walked into death
And damp ground.
They walked crying with their trunks,
Catching bones
Carrying.
Death to death.
The little cub standing in the legs
Of his father.
They were silent
Then crying in the dust.
Where was I?
