My evening with the US Ambassador.
This time last year I was officially invited to spend a very enjoyable evening in the company of the Us Ambassador and Glen Hansard in the Us Ambassadors Residence. As a songwriter and a member of IMRO (Irish Music Rights Organisation) I got the official invite to this invite only reception. The theme of the evening “A conversation on songwriting craft and music copyright”, Hosted by IMRO in the Us Ambassadors Residence. It was suggested on the invitation business attire and I think I nailed it..
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As you can imagine I was super excited about the prospect of getting to spend an evening in such company as Oscar and Grammy winning songwriter Paul Williams (President of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and of course Ireland’s own Oscar winning Glen Hansard.
When I arrived I was amazed at how good the security was. On driving up to the entrance I was greeted by Four members of security staff and I had to produce my Invitation along with photo Id and they even ran a mirror under my car. Once inside I was escorted to where they were serving wine and refreshments on the lawn. I recognized some familiar faces there such as our own local talented Euro-vision winning songwriter Charlie Mc Gettigan along with some members of Aslan, and for those whom I didn’t recognize I simply introduced myself. Meeting up with like minded people is always great and sometimes even better if you haven’t met before.
We were then ushered into the seated area where Glen Hansard spoke very well about the art of Songwriting and his very fortunate part in the movie Once. Paul Williams was next speaking again about his experience in the music business having written songs for The Carpenters (We’ve only just begun) and worked with many more big names including David Bowie and Barbara Streisand and many more, his story was fascinating also. Next up some members of Imro had a chance to talk about music, Songwriting etc. This was hugely beneficial as we got to compare notes and learn some new techniques.
All in all it was a very enjoyable and well spent evening and our host Mr Kevin O Malley (Ambassador of the United States of America to Ireland) and his wife were most pleasant hosts. The residence itself was just Fabulous. I could easily see myself moving into a house like that and being quite content. Then again I do grumble a bit already about having to maintain the bit of lawn I have at the moment and there did seem to be a lot of lawn to be maintained there so I guess I will have to give it some serious thought should the opportunity present itself.