I have been lucky enough to have worked with Pierre on many of his musical projects & this years performance in the CIT Cork School of Music has to have been his most ambitious.Entitled ‘PATRICK-The Story’ it was a retelling of the story and legend that is Ireland’s patron saint. However, there are no snakes here but the story of a man kidnapped as a youth and driven throughout his life by an unshakable religious faith in a time of brutality and darkness.
Sitting down with Pierre on a warm June evening over a bottle of wine, great for after hours brain storming, we both decided that creating a character who was brooding, hurt, & hardened by life was closer to the real man. In short it would be Christian Bales ‘Batman’ as opposed to Adam Wests version.
I started by looking into old latin fonts used on early documents, hand written calligraphic samples like Patricks only known letters (2) available to us today, the Book of Kells and monastic manuscripts etc. I wanted to create an identity for the event and in the end designed the name PATRICK using hand drawn, scanned and altered letters indicative of those I had found in my research, albeit more grittier than monastic.
Before tackling the event packaging, I was very excited to hear that specially commissioned illustrations by Academy Award Nominated animator Nicky Phelan were to be part of the event and really enjoyed working with him throughout the project. Once we had finalised the Patrick character I designed the posters and a 9m x 17m display banner which was to hang from a building in the middle of the city promoting the event.
When designing the programs my idea was based on a small leather journal / book with matching parchment/vellum style pages and ‘uncial’ style type giving a monastic air to the print piece and insuring a sense of continuity with the feel of the performance on the night.
The resulting concert held on March 18th & 19th this year included a 30 piece choir, 56 piece orchestra playing 14 movements, between each of which a narrator told the true story of PATRICK. Nicky’s illustrations were projected through out performance and the auditorium included four 3m high sculpted statues of the PATRICK character created by 3 very talented students of the CIT Crawford School of Art & Design. The last movement culminated in a stunning performance by Internationally renowned Soprano Cara O’Sullivan and for me ended a very special project.