Connolly film scores top composer

Acclaimed Irish composer Patrick Cassidy is to be part of the Connolly creative team.

Mayo-born, Patrick now lives in Los Angeles where he has scored and collaborated on films and documentaries. His aria, Vide Cor Meum, written for the film Hannibal, was also used in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. Vide Cor Meum is the only piece by a "living" composer on Warner Classics 2006 compilation ‘40 Most Beautiful Arias’.

Patrick’s other film credits include: The Front Line, Che Guevara, King Arthur, Salem’s Lot, Broken Harvest and Veronica Guerin.

His piece for orchestra and choir, ‘Famine Remembrance’, commissioned to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Irish Famine, was premiered in 1996 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York with Anjelica Huston as narrator. It will be performed again in June at the opening of Toronto’s Ireland Park with the President of Ireland as special guest.

Tom and Frank are delighted that this important element of the Connolly film is to receive the Cassidy treatment. In discussions they have had with director Adrian Dunbar over the last couple of years about the music for Connolly, Patrick’s name kept surfacing. His achievements speak for themselves, he fits with the vision of creating a major film that is Irish in all of its aspects for a global audience, he understands implicitly what the film is about and what it should bring to that audience, and he very much wants to contribute to that. Tom and Frank are satisfied that the music for Connolly will be memorable.

Director Adrian Dunbar welcomes the news. “Having known and worked with Patrick Cassidy for many years now, I am delighted that he has joined the Connolly team as musical arranger and composer. His native understanding of the subject matter and his huge experience within the traditional and classical forms mean that he is absolutely the right man for the job”.