Bill Whelan

Bill Whelan is an Irish composer and record producer. He wrote the score for Riverdance, the Irish dance show that began as a short interval performance and grew into a worldwide touring production. His music blends traditional Irish instruments and rhythms with modern arrangements, so the dancing and the band feel like one piece.

A Whelan score is built for dancers. Expect fiddles, uilleann pipes (the Irish bagpipes played with a bellows), whistles and drums mixed with choir, saxophone and keyboards. There are no spoken scenes and no plot in the usual sense. The show moves through a series of dance numbers, some thundering with a whole line of dancers stamping in unison, others slow and lyrical, with music that ties them together. Songs sung by a choir sit between the dances. The evening runs about two hours with an interval, and it suits families and anyone curious about Irish music and dance, with no theater experience needed.

Bill Whelan was born in Limerick, Ireland, around 1950. He worked for years as a musician and record producer, writing and arranging for a wide range of Irish artists, and he composed concert works that drew on the folk music of his country.

His best-known piece came in 1994, when he wrote the music for a seven-minute performance during the interval of the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Dublin. The audience response led to a full stage show, Riverdance, which opened in Dublin in 1995 and then toured the world for decades. His score for the show won a Grammy Award in 1997.

Riverdance 30 - The New Generation marks the show's thirtieth anniversary, with a new generation of performers playing his music and dances.