Seamus Heaney HomePlace

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CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND

www.seamusheaneyhome.com

music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks 30 September – 3 October 2016

Photo Š Jemimah Kuhfeld

Life, Literature & Inspiration

CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND

www.seamusheaneyhome.com

music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks Friday 30 September – Monday 3 October

‘I rhyme to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.’

‘Personal Helicon’, Seamus Heaney

Our Celebratory Opening Weekend will launch Seamus Heaney HomePlace and its dedicated performance space The Helicon, in Bellaghy, County Derry.

It is also the prelude to a year-long programme of events across the art forms, responding to the poet’s twelve poetry collections in chronological order. Across two weekends each month, events at The Helicon and in the surrounding landscape will celebrate Seamus Heaney’s poetry, prose and plays.

THE OPENING YEAR 12 months, 12 books Seamus Heaney HomePlace October 2016-September 2017 2016 October November December

7-9, 21-23 4-6, 18-20 2-4, 9-11

Death of a Naturalist (1966) Door into the Dark (1969) Wintering Out (1972)

2017 January North (1975) February Field Work (1979) March Station Island (1984) April The Haw Lantern (1987) May Seeing Things (1991) June The Spirit Level (1996) July Electric Light (2001) August District and Circle (2006) September Human Chain (2010)

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THREE

BOOKING NOW BOTH CONCERTS FOR £20 Two recitals with all 6 suites (2016 & 2017)

Life, Literature & Inspiration

CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND

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music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER

BACH TO BROAGH: A Recital Christian Poltéra (cello) Christian Poltéra plays the famous 300-year-old cello ‘Mara’, built at the time of J S Bach in 1711 by Antonio Stradivari.

Sunday 2 October, 7.30pm: Cello Suites 1, 2 & 3

£12

Six Cello Suites (1717 – 1723) by J S Bach Poems by Seamus Heaney

‘Speech like the twang of a bowstring’

‘Making Strange’, Seamus Heaney

In mid-August 2013, only a few weeks before he died, Seamus Heaney began his last poem in front of the television whilst watching and listening to the music of Bach at the Proms. The poem, ‘In Time’, was posthumously published, referencing Bach and his music, and is dedicated to the future – to his grand-daughter, Síofra.

‘In Time’ will be amongst the Nobel Laureate’s poems to be read between a number of the movements of the three Cello Suites, shaping a unique event to begin our year-long programme.

Since replacing Yo-Yo Ma performing the Elgar concerto with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich at the age of 17, Christian Poltéra has steadily established himself as one of the most prominent cellists of his generation. As a soloist he has worked with eminent orchestras including Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Los Angeles Philharmonic and with conductors Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly, Leonard Slatkin and Christoph von Dohnányi.

‘It is no exaggeration to state that this rapt performance presents this noble concerto with an inspirational intensity to compare with the celebrated Du Pré/Barbirolli recording of the Elgar Concerto.’ Editor’s Choice, Gramophone Magazine on Christian Poltéra The year-long programme will close on Sunday 1 October 2017, 7.30pm with the remaining three Cello Suites 4, 5 & 6 being performed at the end of our September month celebration of Seamus Heaney’s Human Chain.

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FIVE

Photo © John Johnston

‘It is the observance of Heaney’s own strict metre that distinguishes Lynne Parker’s consummate staging of this Old English poem.’

The Guardian

Life, Literature & Inspiration

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CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SATURDAY 1 OCTOBER

BEOWULF A Dramatic Reading Translated by SEAMUS HEANEY (1999) | Directed by LYNNE PARKER Saturday 1 October, 8pm Rough Magic Theatre (Ireland) with The Tron Theatre (Scotland)

£10

‘In off the moors, down through the mist bands, God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.

The bane of the race of men roamed forth, hunting for prey in the high hall.’

‘Beowulf’

Beowulf is regarded as the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon poems and a classic of European literature. Indeed, it stands as one of the foundation works of poetry in English. Seamus Heaney’s vivid translation remains faithful to the original, line by line, at all times both lyrical and musical, while adding the poet’s own creative expression and turning it into a truly epic drama that won the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1999.

Beowulf tells the gripping story of a larger-than-life hero with extraordinary strength who encounters the monstrous, in the form of the seemingly invincible Grendel and Grendel’s mother, defeats it again and again, and then has to live on, physically and psychically exposed, in that exhausted aftermath. First presented by the Tron Theatre, as part of the Glasgow Culture 2014 Programme, award-winning director Lynne Parker directs a cast of three women in this dramatic reading, with original soundscape by Denis Clohessy.

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SEVEN

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THE HOME KEY: PAUL BRADY Friday 30 September, 9.30pm

£15

Paddy Maloney photo © Emily Quinn. John Montague photo © Suella Holland, The Gallery Press.

A special performance by Paul Brady, which launches The Home Key series of concerts at HomePlace. Born in Belfast and raised in Strabane, Brady, like Seamus Heaney, attended St. Columb’s College in Derry. Regarded as one of the greatest interpreters of traditional songs, such as Arthur McBride and The Lakes of Pontchartrain, Paul Brady is also, on the strength of a wonderful array of albums, the pre-eminent Irish singer/songwriter of his generation. He has worked with a number of other artists over the years, including the poet Paul Muldoon, and his work has been acclaimed by artists such as Bob Dylan, Carole King and Van Morrison.

The Home Key is a concert series across the Opening Year featuring singersongwriters celebrating and reminiscing on home in their work and life.

THE WILD DOG ROSE

Paddy Maloney

Tríona Marshall

John Montague

Life, Literature & Inspiration

John Montague (poet), Paddy Maloney (uilleann pipes) and Tríona Marshall (harp) Sunday 2 October, 2pm Paddy Maloney, The Chieftains’ lead musician, first met John Montague in the late 1960s. Since that meeting, they talked about making an album together and forty-five years later it happened, The Wild Dog Rose.

Joined for this performance by The Chieftains’ harpist, Tríona Marshall, the powerful combination of Maloney’s uilleann pipes and tin whistle with Montague’s sonorous voice reciting his own poems combine to create a highly evocative fusion of the word and the note.

£8

CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND

Seamus Egan photo © Thomas Dove

music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks Friday 30 September & Sunday 2 October

THE GIVEN NOTE: A LIFECYCLE (World Premiere) Friday 30 September, 7.30pm A bespoke concert of traditional music and song from Ireland and around the world with a nine-piece ensemble led by Seamus Egan and including bass player Trevor Hutchinson (Lúnasa), singer & lutist Martha Mavroidi, keyboardist Eamon McElholm, koto player Naoko Kikuchi.

To include the official opening occasion-piece, ‘A LifeCycle’.

£8

For the Celebratory Opening Weekend, nine world-class traditional musicians from across the globe will arrive in Bellaghy to rehearse a special one-off occasion-piece to honour south Derry’s world renowned poet. The performers will be singers and instrumentalists chosen from cultures close to Seamus Heaney’s life journey and poetic interest – Eastern Europe, America, Greece, Scotland, Japan and Ireland. The number nine symbolises Seamus Heaney’s two worlds; the domestic and local (the poet was the eldest of nine children) and the intellectual and global (Dante, for whom the number nine had special meaning, was one of Heaney’s poetic guides).

The Given Note is a year-long music series featuring traditional musicians from Ireland and across the world. The series takes its name from Seamus Heaney’s poem, ‘The Given Note’, inspired by a fiddler from the Blasket Islands.

Naoko Kikuchi

Eamon McElholm

Seamus Egan

‘So whether he calls it spirit music Or not, I don’t care. He took it Out of wind off mid-Atlantic.’

‘The Given Note’, Seamus Heaney BOX OFFICE T: +44 (0)28 7938 7444

NINE

Martha Mavroidi

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‘Year after year: when the mist would start To lift off fields and inlets, when morning light Would open like the grain of light being split.’

‘Mycenae Lookout’, Seamus Heaney

MYCENAE LOOKOUT* A mini-epic in 5 parts Reading At Sunrise Church Island, Sunday 2 October, 7.30am Coach leaves Seamus Heaney HomePlace 7am.

Warm clothing and suitable footwear are recommended.

A very special dawn reading of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Mycenae Lookout’ in the evocative setting of Church Island on Lough Beg, a site of significance in his poetry. ‘Mycenae Lookout’ (1999) recounts the return to Mycenae of Agamemnon and his murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, related by the figure of the Watchman as he stands guard on the walls of the royal palace. Through its explorations of guilt and anxiety, the five-part poem engages not just with the Classical Greek world but with the political situation in Northern Ireland in 1994, following the IRA ceasefire.

£8

‘... though the poem was written after the 1994 cessation, the impulse was to give a snarl rather than sing a hymn... It wasn’t a matter of what was happening just then, more a rage at what had gone on in the previous twenty-five years... I remember coming back from the Melbourne Writers Festival in October 1994, going upstairs to the attic a few days later and starting in with the couplets the way a construction worker starts in with a pneumatic drill. Call it a rage for order.’

Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones (ed. Dennis O’Driscoll)

*Special guest readers will be announced in September. See website for details.

Life, Literature & Inspiration

CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SUNDAY 2 - MONDAY 3 OCTOBER

THE BURIAL AT THEBES

by Seamus Heaney A version of Sophocles’ Antigone Off The Cuff Theatre Monday 3 October, 7.30pm

£10

Set in a Northern Ireland city, this production of The Burial at Thebes is presented by Off The Cuff Community Theatre Group.

Originally written by Sophocles almost 2,500 years ago, the play explores themes that are just as relevant to audiences today as they were in his time.

Antigone and Ismene are the last of their family. Both their brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices have just been killed in battle. Their uncle Creon has taken control of the city and outlaws the burial of Polyneices.

Antigone’s appalling dilemma is whether to obey Creon and offend the gods, or follow her heart and plunge her accursed family into a fresh cycle of violence by burying her brother.

Off The Cuff Community Theatre Group is a cross-community and multicultural group who use drama to reach out and inspire communities through their mission statement: ‘bringing people to the theatre and theatre to the people’.

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ELEVEN

Main photo © Bobbie Hanvey

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THE HELICON INAUGURAL POETRY READING Michael Longley & Sinéad Morrissey £5

Saturday 1 October, 11am The first poetry reading at HomePlace brings together award winning poets Michael Longley, a close friend and contemporary of Seamus Heaney, and Sinéad Morrissey, who is also Professor of Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s.

The poets are the oldest and youngest Northern Irish recipients of the T S Eliot Prize, Michael for The Weather in Japan and Sinéad for Parallax, and their work has garnered international acclaim.

‘One of the finest lyric poets of our century.’ John Burnside on Michael Longley

Sinéad Morrissey

Life, Literature & Inspiration

‘The outstanding poet of her generation.’ Stephen Knight on Sinéad Morrissey

CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SATURDAY 1 OCTOBER

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT A Poetry Ireland Event £5 Saturday 1 October, 4pm Readers: Marie Heaney, Gerald Dawe, Michael Longley. Performers: Bronagh Gallagher, Iaona Petcu Colan Poetry Ireland, in association with HomePlace, is delighted to mark the launch of All Through the Night, a new anthology of night poems and lullabies edited by Marie Heaney, with readings from the book and live music.

The anthology includes poems by Margaret Atwood, W. H. Auden, William Blake, Eavan Boland, Emily Dickinson, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Michael Longley, Paula Meehan, Paul Muldoon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Sylvia Plath, William Wordsworth and many others.

Marie Heaney’s books include Over Nine Waves, a book of Irish legends, and The Names Upon the Harp. Marie has edited several anthologies, including Heart Mysteries, a personal selection of Irish poetry.

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THIRTEEN

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Tom Paulin

Christopher Reid

Julie O’Callaghan

REMEMBERING SEAMUS Tom Paulin, Christopher Reid and Julie O’Callaghan Saturday 1 October, 2pm In the first of two special discussions, three friends and fellow poets reflect on the life and work of Seamus Heaney. Tom Paulin is an acclaimed poet and critic, and alongside Seamus Heaney was a Director of the Field Day Theatre Company. An award-winning poet himself, Christopher Reid was Poetry Editor at Faber and Faber during the 1990s. Julie O’Callaghan is a celebrated poet and both she and her late husband, Dennis O’Driscoll, were close friends of Seamus Heaney.

Life, Literature & Inspiration

£5

CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SATURDAY 1 - SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER

REMEMBERING SEAMUS Peter Fallon, Olivia O’Leary and John Horgan £5

Sunday 2 October, 4pm In this second grouping of friends, we hear the personal reflections and recollections of three writers and sometime collaborators. Peter Fallon, poet and founder of The Gallery Press, Ireland’s major poetry publisher, was a close personal friend and also Heaney’s Irish publisher. The writer and journalist John Horgan was the first Press Ombudsman in Ireland and a friend going back to the 1960s. Olivia O’Leary is an Irish journalist, writer and current affairs presenter and knew Seamus Heaney over many years.

Peter Fallon

Olivia O’Leary

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John Horgan

FIFTEEN

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OPENING DAY FREE EVENTS music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks FRIDAY 30 SEPTEMBER

SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT** Lunch-hour reading Friday 30 September, 1.10pm

FREE*

Special Guest Reader** In Seamus Heaney’s essay, Something To Write Home About, he describes his home ground, the experience of growing up between a railway and a road and the sounds he associated with that childhood world. The essay also captures his early fascination with language, and the evocative power that certain words, such as ‘hoke’, held for him.

INCERTUS Directed by David Grant A staged reading performed by students of Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University.

Friday 30 September, 5.30pm

FREE*

Readers: Shea Atchison, Stephen Connolly, Brian Diamond, Danni Glover, Rachael Hegarty, Julie Morrissy, Emma Must For this opening day reading, we go back to Seamus Heaney’s earliest days as a poet, when he tentatively started writing under the pen-name Incertus, meaning ‘uncertain’ in Latin. Bringing together Heaney’s earliest poems with later writings, and drawing links between the two, the hour-long staged reading will also include work by the current crop of young University poets inspired by Seamus Heaney.

Presented in association with the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University.

*These events are free but by ticket only. **Special guest readers will be announced in September. See website for details.

Life, Literature & Inspiration

Main photo © The Campbells. Inset photo © M McLaughlin

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CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER

SEAMUS HEANEY LifeCycle Tour With accredited tour guide and Seamus Heaney expert Eugene Kielt Sunday 2 October, 9.30am & 11.30am (Limited availability)

A guided coach tour of the landscape made famous by Seamus Heaney’s poetry in the company of local man, accredited tour guide and Heaney specialist Eugene Kielt, exploring the ‘home ground’ in which he was rooted and which so influenced his poetry.

Coach departs from HomePlace.

Tour duration 1 hour.

Eugene Kielt

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SEVENTEEN

£12

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CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SATURDAY 1 OCTOBER

CREATIVITY WORKSHOPS FOR ALL THE FAMILY

Saturday 1 October 12.30pm - 2.30pm & 3pm - 5pm

FELT-MAKING WORKSHOP Join Donna Lynch of Artybird for a fine time of felt-making. In this workshop the children can experiment with the fabrics using the technique of wet felt-making to create their own unique piece of art to take home. Suitable for children aged 7 to 11 years. All material provided. Places are free but must be booked in advance.

Saturday 1 October 12.30pm – 1.45pm, 2pm - 3.15pm & 3.45pm - 5pm

FIGHTING WORDS Family Creative Writing Workshops Unlock your literary imagination in these fun, creative writing workshops for children and their families. Hosted

by Fighting Words, Belfast, the sessions are suitable for 6 to 12 year olds. There is no need to book, simply drop in - just bring your imagination and leave as an author!

All children must be supervised during the workshop by a parent or guardian.

Life, Literature & Inspiration

www.seamusheaneyhome.com

CELEBRATORY OPENING WEEKEND music, theatre, poetry, song, readings and talks SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER Sunday 2 October 1pm - 3pm

FELT-MAKING WORKSHOP Join Donna Lynch of Artybird for a fine time of felt-making. In this workshop the children can experiment with the fabrics using the technique of wet felt-making to create their own unique piece of art to take home. Suitable for children aged 7 to 11 years. All material provided. Places are free but must be booked in advance.

Sunday 2 October 1pm - 2.15pm & 2.30pm - 3.45pm

FIGHTING WORDS Family Creative Writing Workshops Unlock your literary imagination in these fun, creative writing workshops for children and their families. Hosted by Fighting Words, Belfast, the sessions are suitable for 6 to 12 year olds. There is no need to book, simply drop in - just bring your imagination and leave as an author!

All children must be supervised during the workshop by a parent or guardian.

Sunday 2 October 1pm - 3pm

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT Illustration workshops Children aged 3 to 12 can craft their own nocturnal creature with illustrator Paula McGloin. Places are limited and advance registration is recommended at www.poetryireland.ie.

BOX OFFICE T: +44 (0)28 7938 7444

NINETEEN

AT A GLANCE Friday 30 September 1.10pm Lunchtime Reading: Something to Write Home About Free but by ticket only

Saturday 1 October 2pm Remembering Seamus: Tom Paulin, Christopher Reid & Julie O’Callaghan £5

Friday 30 September 5.30pm Staged Reading: Incertus Free but by ticket only

Saturday 1 October 2pm - 3.15pm Fighting Words Workshop Free

Friday 30 September 7.30pm The Given Note: A LifeCycle £8

Saturday 1 October 3pm – 5pm Felt-making Workshop Free but must book in advance

Sunday 2 October 1pm – 3pm All Through The Night Illustrations Workshop Free but must book in advance

Friday 30 September 9.30pm The Home Key: Paul Brady £15

Saturday 1 October 3.45pm - 5pm Fighting Words Workshop Free

Sunday 2 October 2pm The Wild Dog Rose £8

Saturday 1 October 11am The Helicon Inaugural Poetry Reading: Michael Longley & Sinéad Morrissey £5

Saturday 1 October 4pm All Through The Night: A Poetry Ireland Event £5

Sunday 2 October 2.30pm - 3.45pm Fighting Words Workshop Free

Saturday 1 October 12.30pm – 2.30pm Felt-making Workshop Free but must book in advance Saturday 1 October 12.30pm – 1.45pm Fighting Words Workshop Free

Saturday 1 October 8pm Beowulf: A Dramatic Reading £10 Sunday 2 October 7.30am# Mycenae Lookout: A Reading at Sunrise £8 # Coach leaves Seamus Heaney HomePlace at 7am Sunday 2 October 9.30am & 11.30am LifeCycle Tour £12

Seamus Heaney HomePlace 45 Main Street Bellaghy BT45 8HT E: SeamusHeaneyHome@midulstercouncil.org BOX OFFICE +44 (0)28 7938 7444

www.seamusheaneyhome.com

Sunday 2 October 1pm – 3pm Felt-making Workshop Free but must book in advance Sunday 2 October 1pm - 2.15pm Fighting Words Workshop Free

Sunday 2 October 4pm Remembering Seamus: Peter Fallon, Olivia O’Leary & John Horgan £5 Sunday 2 October 7.30pm Bach to Broagh: A Recital £12 Monday 3 October 7.30pm The Burial at Thebes £10