on radio

2 www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

To commemorate Heaney’s 70th birthday RTÉ Radio 1 has produced a special edition collector’s item box set and a number of special broadcasts. SEAMUS HEANEY | COLLECTED POEMS The Nobel Laureate reads his 11 poetry collections presented in a 15 CD box-set. The box-set offers over 12 hours of Heaney’s poetry, a 58-page essay on the poet’s life and work by fellow Irish poet, Peter Sirr, along with images of Heaney taken throughout his life. Exclusive background information on the making of Seamus Heaney: Collected Poems, including images from the recording and producer Tim Lehane’s notes on the experience of recording Heaney reading his own work, is available on the RTÉ Heaney At 70 website.

RTÉ Radio 1 | Heaney At 70 Broadcasts RTÉ Radio 1’s special Heaney At 70 broadcasts include a live programme from the Royal Hospital Kilmainham culminating in Heaney’s birthday speech; an Arts Show Heaney Special; another opportunity to hear a public interview with Seamus Heaney recorded last year in The Abbey Theatre; a Tubridy Show panel discussion on Heaney, and a Marian Finucane Show interview with the Nobel laureate.

RTÉ lyric fm’s Seamus Heaney The Real and The Imaginary examines the work of Seamus Heaney in the light of his own public statements on the relationship between poetry and reality, looking back through RTÉ Libraries & Archives. For information on RTÉ lyric fm’s Heaney At 70 Classic Drive special live from the Royal Hospital Kilmainham please see the RTÉ Performing Groups section opposite.

Note Some recordings will be available to download as podcasts.

WHAT CD Box-set | WHERE www.rte.ie/shop | MORE www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

WHEN See listings for April 11/12/13 | WHERE RTÉ Radio 1 | MORE www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

WHEN 10pm April 19 | WHERE RTÉ lyric fm | MORE www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

WHAT Collected Poems | WHERE RTÉ Radio 1 LW252/RTÉ Radio 1 Extra on DAB | WHEN 9am April 13

performing groups

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As part of its Heaney At 70 celebrations, RTÉ commissioned Irish composers Rachel Holstead, Kevin O’Connell and Ian Wilson to write short pieces for the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet as a personal response to Seamus Heaney’s work.

The pieces will be premiered by the quartet on Monday April 13 in the Baroque Chapel of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham at a performance presented by RTÉ’s John Kelly. Before each piece, Seamus Heaney will read the poem that inspired the composer: The Given Note (Holstead), Fosterling (O’Connell) and Horace and the Thunder, also published under the title Anything Can Happen (Wilson). The concert will be transmitted live on RTÉ lyric fm as part of Classic Drive, starting at 5pm. The recording of the performance will be available online at www.rte.ie/heaneyat70 until May 13.

The touchstone for Rachel Holstead’s piece The Given Note is Heaney’s poem about the Blasket fiddler who retrieves the mysterious Port na bPúcaí (The Fairies’ Tune) from Inisvicillane. As she writes: “The poem’s fiddler becomes a metaphor for the poet himself, for his seeing and hearing of the beauties, ordinary and extraordinary mysteries of the world.”

Kevin O’Connell describes Heaney as a beacon especially for anyone who, like him, grew up in Derry. His piece, “Where should this music be?”, relates to Heaney’s line in Fosterling about waiting until he was “nearly fifty/ To credit marvels.” In Across a Clear Blue Sky, inspired by Horace and the Thunder and the 9/11 attacks

that prompted it, Ian Wilson seeks to respond to that event with the same kind of dignity that Heaney did in his poem.

www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

WHEN 5pm Monday April 13 | WHERE RTÉ lyric fm | MORE www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

Rachel Holstead

Kevin O’Connell

Ian Wilson

on television Made with Seamus Heaney’s unprecedented collaboration, Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous is both intimate and all-embracing, a fresh and original look at the man and the artist. At the heart of director Charlie McCarthy’s Arts Lives film is an exploration of the key personal relationship in Heaney’s life, that with his wife Marie. Following Heaney to Harvard, New York and London, this feature-length film digs deep into the rich store of Heaney’s poetry to reveal a man who has lived his life fully, who has used his gifts to give expression to the great themes in all our lives of love, loss and longing; and who has

managed, as a man and as a writer, to combine the simplicity of a farmer’s son from County Derry with the sophistication of a major artist. Directed by Charlie McCarthy. Produced by Clíona Ní Bhuachalla. An Icebox Films production for RTÉ.

WHEN 10.15pm April 14 | WHERE RTÉ One | MORE www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

on-line

As part of RTÉ’s Heaney At 70 output, RTÉ Libraries and Archives will celebrate the life and work of Seamus Heaney with a special on-line exhibition. Throughout his career, Seamus Heaney has appeared on RTÉ Radio and Television to talk about his work and his life and to read his poetry. Heaney also presented a number of programmes for RTÉ. These recordings from the radio and television archives present a fascinating and often moving portrait of Seamus Heaney in his own words.

In addition, there is also a Heaney At 70 website at www.rte.ie/heaneyat70 providing access to all of RTÉ’s Heaney at 70 programming.

WHAT DVD | WHERE www.rte.ie/shop | MORE www.rte.ie/heaneyat70

RTÉ Television will also release a full feature-length DVD of RTÉ’s Arts Lives profile Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous. The DVD will be available in shops nationwide and also online at www.rte.ie/shop from April 17.

Photographs front-cover, page 2 watermark, page 4 watermark and inset by John Minihan;

pages 2-4 mastheads by Mark Stedman Main Logo Design Carol Coffey, RTÉ Graphic Design

Flyer Design Joseph Hoban, RTÉ Press Office Text © RTÉ 2009

WHAT Exhibition | WHERE www.rte.ie/libraries | MORE www.rte.ie/heaneyat70