In response to calls by groups such as Sounding the Feminists to hear all composers, our latest interview series seeks to provide a platform for a more diverse range of composers, performers, sound artists and music professionals. Shauna Caffrey speaks to award-winning conductor, composer, and force of nature Eimear Noone.

‘Eternally musically curious’, Eimear Noone's work has taken her across the globe and deep into the realms of fantasy, and has established her at the forefront of videogame music.

We catch up with Eimear shortly following her return from Krakow Film Music Festival to talk and the importance of becoming an instrument of change.

- GoldenPlec: In your first collaboration with RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (Video Games Classic), you illustrated the impact that  works from the Western art-music canon have had on video game music. What do you say to people who feel that video game music doesn’t belong in the canon?

"Just like every other period of music history, you’ll have bad video game music and good video game music, and as in other periods, the good will out. In saying that, it’s an emerging area that’s starting to attract some A-list composers, so, the better the composer the better the music will be.

It seems to be that since technology made it possible to use full orchestra, choir—massive forces really—that’s going to attract people like me, people with a classical background. For me, it was always, ‘what can I get my hands into that involves the orchestra?’ and by chance it became film and video game music. When I was at college in Trinity, my job didn’t exist! Certainly, composing for video games was embryonic.

People were just beginning to use the orchestra. Before that, it was 8-bit, 16-bit, and every note had to be programmed in, note by note. Which actually gave rise to some very memorable melodies because they had to be constructed in a way that was distinctive, with no frills and no tools to do much with it. So you got these very, very memorable tunes. Today, you get the epic video game score which, to me, is programme music, really!"

- GoldenPlec: Do you think that we’ll see similar developments in the future of video game music?

"I see it that some of the technology is so fascinating, especially in VR (virtual reality) realm, I can’t imagine a composer like Richard Wagner wouldn’t have been fascinated with the creative possibilities of something like that! It’s all about the creative mind. It’s about who is working on something, what does it do to their imagination. It’s also got an amazing public reach.

When one of the franchises that I’ve worked on, World Of Warcraft, reached its tenth anniversary a few years ago, it had over 100 million individual players. That’s 100 million people who’ve lived inside this music for a long time. They don’t just watch a 2-hour movie, they live inside this music for months on end. So when you consider that, it does impact on how you write the music.

For me it’s like any other period in history where composers have collaborated with other creatives. I always joke that Handel was the one who had the indignity of scoring the Music for the Royal Fireworks, and probably had the first row with a sound design team in the history of scoring for media. Today with film music we deal with explosions, and sound designers, and the same with Video Game music, and I always think of poor Handel. At least Tchaikovsky purposely wrote for cannons!

I was on a panel recently with Jan Kaczmarek on one side of me, an Oscar winner, and another Oscar winner, Elliot Goldenthal, and [Polish composer Krzysztof] Penderecki! It was a film music panel, and it was one of the most bizarre experiences. When I was listening to Penderecki's 'Threnody' as a student, I never imagined that a bunch of orcs and night elves would put me on a panel with him!

I mean, bizarro! But that’s what video game music is to me. Its getting deeply into the creative aspects of what creators, directors and artists are doing, what the experience is for the audience member and then going as deeply into my own creative ability and technique and my abilities as I can to honour what the others are doing to a high level. It’s pop art that’s becoming deeper and deeper as time goes on."

- GoldenPlec: As the techniques and styles of scoring of video game music and film music draw closer together, do you think that public perception of what video games and video game music are and can be is changing?

"Absolutely. Fifteen years ago, when I was doing film music concerts it was looked down upon, it was sneered at. And today, its part of the staple diet of the concert going public, and video game music is the new kid in town! It’s kind of the scrappy younger brother of film music.

These things take time, and it takes time for the art form to develop, it takes time to attract the right type of talent, it takes time to be taken seriously by audiences, and the only way its taken seriously by audiences is for enough music to be written by top talent. That’s the point at which it happens.

Video Games have so many different subject matters that they require every possible genre of music. What we think of as video game music is either the beeps and boops of 8-bit and 16-bit or the epic WOW type of sound, but there’s every other possible genre in there. There’s rock scores, there’s big band, there’s absolutely everything.

When we think of film music, we think of the orchestral side of the genre but there’s also room for everything else. I find that very freeing as a creative, it serves my musical curiosity, and I’m nothing if not completely musically curious."

- GoldenPlec: I suppose that’s a good trait in a conductor-composer.

"It gets me into scrapes all the time!"

- GoldenPlec: Throughout your career, you’ve vocally advocated for the position of women in music. Particularly in the field of Video Games, which is still often considered to be a male pursuit, or for a male audience, have you found that your presence has made an impact in changing the ‘boy’s club’ image?

"I hate the term ‘girl gamer’ when used as a negative. There are so many different types of Video Games, so many people think its all shoot-em-up games, but they’re not a majority.

To say we couldn’t or shouldn’t take part in any pursuit, that doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t support conductors or composers who come out in the press and denigrate women in those roles, it’s nonsensical. People say what’s it like being a woman composer, and I think, “Why don’t you ask him what it’s like being a male composer?”

Image by Steve Humphreys

To women out there, when you hear or read something negative, imagine that the word woman was replaced with any minority. Feel the outrage you would feel if you saw that. We have a right to feel that outrage when we see the word women in that negative context.

I grew up on a house full of boys, I had amazing male examples around me, I don’t feel at all negatively towards my male colleagues, but at the same time I’m not going to not stand up for my female colleagues.

I might completely musically disagree, be of a completely different background, have a completely different philosophy, technique, see every aspect of musicianship differently, yet you feel like when you’re performing or writing that you have to do well or it reflects negatively on everywoman. That’s wrong. That pressure shouldn’t be there. It’s not there for men; it shouldn’t be there for us. You can sometimes sense it in the women in the orchestra. I know sometimes the women are sitting there in rehearsals thinking ‘please don’t be crap!’ and you can feel their relief when it goes well!

My femininity is as important as the fact that I’m Irish, the year in which I was born, my educational background, my cultural background, being an eldest child with three brothers. These are all parts of my story as an artist. Myriad things, but what I’m always asked about is being a woman. It’s only one part of my story. I don’t want to go to a concert that has the same type of person from the same background. You need diversity because the audience deserves to hear different experiences.

The audience will only be the richer from having more women, more people of colour, more diverse perspectives on the podium. Right now, 100% of the population are represented by 50% in a lot of the arts, and I think we’re the poorer for that."

- GoldenPlec: On the topic of diversity and your own identity as an Irish woman, do you feel that the perception of classical music as an elitist pursuit in Ireland is changing?

"Absolutely. Irish people are allergic to elitism. I think that’s a great quality. I think classical music is not elitist. The music is the music, and that’s that. It’s surrounded with a lot of elitism, and I don’t think that’s attractive to the vast majority of the public, it certainly isn’t to me.

I programme in such a way that if your an aficionado, there’s something for you, but if you’ve just walked in off the street and have never heard an orchestra in your life, you’ll have an emotional experience and you’ll want to have that experience again. My job is in service to the audience, and in service to myself, and that inspires me in my work and my constant study: how can you make it better for the audience? I think of people who’ve had a really bad day, or the person who’s been serving food all day.

They’ve been in service to others all day, and then it’s my turn to serve them. I also programme in a way that doesn’t patronise the audience, doesn’t insult them, it doesn’t make them feel stupid, illuminating something in a more general spirit rather than using jargon to make yourself seem smarter, than that pomposity. I think Irish people are really good at stripping that away.

I love to interact with the audience and share my curiosity and fascination, which never goes away. That childlike excitement is something I protect in myself, when I can communicate that, people react. When it’s genuine, people feel compelled to come along for the ride. It’s so important when people tell me ‘I brought my kids to the concert!’ or ‘I’ve never seen an orchestra before!’.

That means the world to me, it makes it all worth it. I’ve seen little girls mimicking me conducting from stage, my heart is fit to burst when I see that!"

- GoldenPlec: In those moments—and with regard to what you’ve said earlier regarding women in music—do you feel that you’re in a position of stewardship or responsibility in those moments? How does that affect your relationship with conducting?

"It absolutely does affect me. I have to take that on. I can tell myself that that’s not part of it. Right now, in 2018, I see myself as an instrument. It’s about more than me. Before I went onstage in Poland, there were 14,000 people in the audience. Everyone on the programme was male. All the conductors, all the composers, so I thought to myself, this dress rehearsal needs to go really well, I want the women in the orchestra feel amazing.

It’s an amazing event, it’s an honour to be invited, but I’m the only woman on days and days of programming, and I don’t like being the only one. I want my girlfriends around me. I want to be cheering in the audience, I want to conduct their music, so I’m shouting their names from the treetops.

All of the women in the audience, all of the young girls in the audience, they don’t want me to be meek, they don’t want me to apologise for my prescence, they want me to come out and own the stage.

Tear it up. Set it on fire. Drop the mic, and say thank you very much. So, for someone else coming after me, or the little girl in the audience who’s going to the the next Penderecki, I’ll try to be that instrument of change."

 

Eimear will be presenting a conducting masterclass in Dublin on August 4, in association with IMRO. She will be bringing the Video Games Classic to Qatar in 2019 with Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

Picture credits Isobel Thomas/Steve Humphreys