Aimee Banks to Feature in New Roger Doyle Opera
Aimee Banks, the 14-year-old soprano who represented Ireland in the Junior Eurovision last year, is to feature in Roger Doyle’s new opera, Heresy.
Banks, who this month performed her first solo concert at Galway Cathedral, has already sung at Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Whitney Center for the Arts in Boston.
On RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena, Roger explained how he came across Banks’ singing:
I was at a birthday party for Bob Quinn, the film-maker, who is a man I’ve worked with a lot. And at this birthday party was this young girl, who was Bob’s grand-niece, and she sang beautifully, an aria from an opera.
Doyle contacted the singer shortly afterwards and asked her to audition for the upcoming performances.
Heresy is a new electronic opera based on the life, work and death of heretic Giordano Bruno who was burnt at the stake in 1600. It runs at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin from 28 October to 5 November.
It is actually Doyle’s first opera, as he explained on air,
For years I would say I’ll never write an opera, and I do feel like a bit of an an outsider to the world of opera… I use to get very upset at… the amount of money that was going to opera…but things changed for the better in recent years in the sense that the Arts Council has opera project awards and opera production awards for first timers – so that’s me: I’m a first timer.
The libretto for Heresy is by Jocelyn Clarke with new scenes by Eric Fraad, and the ensemble cast features Morgan Crowley (tenor/counter tenor), Caitriona O’Leary (mezzo soprano), Daire Halpin (soprano), Robert Crowe (male soprano), and Banks (child soprano).
For more information and tickets, visit https://goo.gl/l7hOLC