Bill Whelan

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Riverdance - Music from the Show   DE 39 08/11/1997 (19 weeks)   AT 23 12/13/1998 (5 weeks)   CH 23  gold 12/27/1998 (7 weeks)   UK 31 03/25/1995 (58 weeks)   US 48  platinum 03/30/1996 (27 weeks)

Singles

Riverdance   IE 1 05/05/1994 (38 weeks)   UK 9  silver 06/04/1994 (25 weeks)

Bill Whelan (born May 22, 1950 in Limerick ) is an Irish musician and record producer. He is best known for Riverdance , which went from an Irish interlude to an international dance show.

biography

Bill Whelan heard music from his parents when he was young. His mother was a pianist and at the age of eight he learned the piano and organ and later attended the local music school. He was a successful disc jockey in the late 1960s, providing music at events and parties. He also set up a home studio with a recording device and made recordings. He sent an instrumental piece to a friend in England who made sure that it was used in the film Bloomfield by actor and director Richard Harris , who was also from Limerick . Although he received recognition for this, he decided to study law at Trinity College Dublinwhich he also completed. But then he started a music career.

At first he was primarily a studio musician, but then increasingly became an arranger and producer. When he produced the 1980 Grand Prix title What's Another Year for Johnny Logan , which became an international hit, he became one of the most important Irish producers and songwriters. With Dónal Lunny , he musically designed the Eurovision show in Dublin the following year . Lunny had also brought him to Planxty , one of the most influential bands in traditional Irish music , as a keyboardist . As a producer he worked with U2 , Kate Bush and Van Morrison , among others . In 1987 he worked again for Johnny Logan, who won the Grand Prix d'Eurovision for the second time with Hold Me Now . From 1986 Whelan was also seen as musical director of the talk show Saturday Live on television.

After Ireland won the Grand Prix again in 1993, Whelan was again commissioned with the music for the show the following year. The intermission piece Riverdance with tap dancer Michael Flatley and other well-known Irish musicians was a great success, reaching number 1 in the Irish charts and the top 10 in Great Britain . By the end of the year Whelan and Flatley had developed a full-length Riverdance show . The show album was internationally successful and in 1997 it received a Grammy Award for the best musical show album. In the years that followed, Whelan put several ensembles together and staged the show worldwide.

His other work included working on films such as Die Maske with Jim Carrey and Tanz in die Freiheit with Meryl Streep in the 1990s, as well as collaborations with the New York Metropolitan Opera and orchestral compositions such as The Spirit of Mayo and The Connemara Suite .

In the 2000s he received awards for life's work from both the Irish Music Rights Organization (IMRO) and the Meteor Awards .

Discography

Albums

• Timedance '92: The Seville Suite “Kinsale to La Coruña” (1992)
• The Other World (1993)
• Riverdance - Music from Riverdance: The Show (1995)
• Some Mother's Son (Soundtrack, 1996)
• Dancing at Lughnasa (Soundtrack, 1998)
• The Connemara Suite (with the Irish Chamber Orchestra , 2007)
• Riverdance: A Symphonic Suite (with RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, 2018)

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: IE DE AT CH UK
2. ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Gold / Platinum awards: CH UK (database search) US
4. ↑ ^{a b} Ireland’s Dance with Music (Interview), Toner Quinn, Journal of Music in Ireland, Vol 8 No. 4, accessed July 22, 2020
5. ^ The live Bill Whelan , John O'Shaughnessy, Limerick Leader, Sept. 2, 1987

Web links

• Official Homepage (English)
• Bill Whelan , Collection of Articles at Limerick City Library
• Bill Whelan in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Bill Whelan at Allmusic (English)