Something for the Weekend: Finghin Collins's cultural picks
A former child prodigy, Finghin Collins launched his international career by winning first prize at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland at the age of 22 in 1999.
Since then, he has become one of Ireland's most celebrated musicians and performed extensively across Europe, the US, the Far East, and Australia, both as a soloist and chamber musician, and with many of the world's leading orchestras.
Finghin is the Artistic Director of the prestigious Dublin International Piano Competition (DIPC), which returns to Dublin this May and will see 23 pianists from 12 countries compete in what is considered one of the world's leading piano competitions.
We asked Finghin for his choice cultural picks...
FILM
The last film I saw was Maria, the Maria Callas biopic with Angelina Jolie. It's great to see how many mainstream movies have been released recently about classical music – I'm thinking of Tár (2022) and Maestro (2023) in particular. While it's easy to pick holes in movies of this genre which are so anchored in reality and which require actors to sing/conduct/perform as if they were world-class musicians, I did find Maria very moving in its depiction of Callas' final weeks.
MUSIC
Music is my life so to recommend a piece of music is very difficult. I am regularly asked who is my favourite composer and it changes weekly depending on what repertoire I am performing! Having said that, there are some constants in my life and I think Mozart and Schubert are very much in the top drawer of my life's loves. I have performed many Schubert songs with different singers this year and it always brings special joy. In particular, I performed one of Schubert's most demanding songs Erlkönig for the first time in February – a great challenge but hugely rewarding.
BOOK
At the moment, I am just finishing The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, an entertaining and stimulating exploration of Irish society and family relations. The book that affected me most last year was Paul Lynch's Prophet Song – very chilling.
THEATRE
I went to see Emma at the Abbey at Christmas time. My friend and I had seats in the second row, within spitting distance of the actors. I have rarely laughed so much - it was irreverent but not disrespectful to Jane Austen's novel. The actors were amazing - I don't know how they have the energy to perform the show over and over again, and sometimes twice in one day.
TV
I don't really watch television apart from the odd news bulletin. For my guilty pleasures, I do look up old episodes of Are You Being Served? on YouTube!
GIG
I perform regularly in Switzerland and am off there again in late May for a performance with a French wind quintet. Back in Ireland, I'll be at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festival, performing in Killruddery on June 8th – always a very special place to perform.
The last concert I attended was Nathalia Milstein, the 2015 winner of the Dublin International Piano Competition, who performed Brahms' monumental Second Piano Concerto with an orchestra in the Netherlands. It's great to see her career going from strength to strength.
ART
One of my favourite artists is the Dublin batik artist Bernadette Madden. Her work is individual, classy and very rooted in the local landscape/cityscape. Bernadette is also a personal friend, so perhaps I'm biased! Her imagery has been associated with the Dublin International Piano Competition for many years and since I became Artistic Director of the Competition, I have sought to strengthen the connection.
I love listening to radio as you can do other things at the same time (drive a car, do the ironing, cook the dinner – not, sadly, practice the piano!). Current affairs programmes remain my staple, I am constantly fascinated by the editorial choices that must be made on a daily basis – which topics to cover/how to cover them fairly/how to interview somebody firmly but politely (if there are saying things that seem outrageous to you, but perhaps not to others) and so on. I think in another life I would have liked to present a current affairs radio programme but I may not always be able to keep my cool!
TECH
I'm actually trying to reduce my use of Apps and have deactivated my social media accounts in recent months. It's a great relief - and really I am convinced that social media does not play an overwhelmingly positive role in society.
I do try to keep my website updated because that remains an important source of information.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Everyone says Artificial Intelligence is the next big thing – but really I think genuine human intelligence is so much more attractive and I'll be sticking with this for the foreseeable future.
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Maria Branagan's just another Irish person who's swapped the Emerald Isle for Australia. Well, except for the fact that she landed a part in hit Oz drama Scrublands. John Byrne reports. Zoom is home to most interview situations these days. Post-covid, it's rare to meet up with someone unless they happen to be in Ireland. Or I just happen to be in Hollywood. It takes away the personal touch, but it also allows you to conduct interviews in a more personal setting than having a chat on the phone. Being able to see the person you're conversing with is always a plus. Especially if – like Maria Branagan – the person on the other side of the Zoom happens to be in Australia. It's a long way from her native Meath, and that's a story in itself. But the ultimate reason why we're chatting, early in the day for me and late in the evening for her, is that she went to Australia hoping it would ultimately lead to a new chapter in her acting career. Spoiler alert: it did. Remember Australian drama Scrublands? Well, it's back on RTÉ2 for a second season from Monday June 9 and our Maria's got a part in it for a three-episode arc. No wonder she's grinning at me like a cat in a cream factory when I ask if she headed Down Under on a whim. "I really did just say, f*** this. I'm heading off," she laughs. "In September of 2023, myself and my fiancé had just finished renovating these farm garages on his mam's land. And that's where we intended to live. "Long story boring. We ended up renovating these garages myself and Dan and - I'm not joking - we finished and I just turned to him and I said 'I've booked flights to Australia' and he said 'What, what? 'And I was, like, 'We're moving!' "And so off we went. We packed our bags in January of 2024. And it's been a fantastic experience. I mean, it's been daunting and there's definitely times where you're like, 'What am I doing?' "But generally speaking, I do believe that everyone should leave home for a couple of years, you know, kind of puts perspective on what life is all about really." So, what's it all about then? "It couldn't be nicer," Maria insists, describing her current surroundings. "The weather's just gorgeous." And where is this gorgeous weather? "I'm in Mudgee, which is a small town four hours inland from Sydney." From Meath to Mudgee. It's quite literally half the world away. Thing was, Maria Branagan wasn't getting many breaks in her acting career here in Ireland. Sure, there was some work, such as the 2023 movie Made in Dublin. As is the nature of the acting game in a small country such as Ireland, you can spend a lot of time travelling on a career path without getting very far. And time does tend to fly. Especially when other things are put on hold. Maria's brutally candid. "I literally had, like, resigned myself to the fact that I had been trying to kind of crack the Irish industry for about 10 years. And I've been putting off myself and my partner's travel plans. "I only have ever had two wishes in my life," she adds. "One was to be a working actor and the other was to travel the world. So I put our travel plans on hold for so many years. "And my partner was so understanding. He was really like, 'Absolutely. I'm so committed to you pursuing your dream'. "And one morning I woke up and it would have been around September 2023 and there was a wave of peace that came over me. I don't think I ever told myself I was going to quit [acting] because it is a drug, isn't it? "So I kind of just put it on the back burner. And I said, 'Look, let's go travel.' And when we, if we eventually ever come home, I'll try again." Fate– or whatever you'd like to call it – made an appearance when, at the same time, a pal of hers made a big life choice of her own that had the potential to impact Maria's acting prospects. "Literally the December before I left, a friend of mine, Cathy Ievers, told me that she was going out on her own and making her own [acting] agency. She had done huge things in London with massive agencies and then she was like, 'I'm going out on my own.'" Not only that, Cathy wanted Maria on her roster of talent. Y'know, the Maria that's just about to put acting on hold and move halfway around the globe. No biggie, Cathy insisted. "She said that everyone's sending self-tapes these days," Maria explains. "So you could be anywhere in the world, you know. I thought, maybe we can do this - but when we got to Australia, I was really disoriented and really just focused on travelling. I kind of had acting in the back of my mind." Lucky for her, Cathy Ievers was beavering away back on this side of the planet. Maria was Down Under "about three or four weeks" when Cathy sent her a text about interest from a top casting agency in Sydney. Yep. Sydney, Australia. Maria recalls: "I didn't think much of it, sent the tape in, forgot about it entirely, and Cathy was on to me a week later to tell me I was after getting a recall." Two weeks later, she got the news that she'd been cast to play a character called Toria in the second season of hit Australian drama Scrublands. Sweet. "They actually changed her name from Topaz to Toria," Maria explains when I ask about her character. "They thought Toria was more of an Irish name. I was like, Toria is not an Irish name. The description was originally an Argentinian girl. So that's why they went with Topaz. But I didn't care. I got cast." Indeed. Once the name on the paysllips is 'Maria Branagan' that's all that really matters. So – after some to-ing and fro-ing involving vans and stuff – Maria was off to Western Australia for the shoot. As for the plot and where Toria fits in, Maria recalls: "It's all about this murder that occurs and Martin Scarson, who's the lead character, played by Luke Arnold, has to figure out who the killer is. "It was a friend of his that had been murdered and the whole story is wrapped around that. "And then Toria - the part that I got cast as - she's actually a backpacker and she's trying to scam this well-off sleaze bag in the town, for a visa and money. "So Toria comes into this town, she's an Irish girl who's hooked up with this English dude. They're so ropey. They get involved in some ropey stuff with the local drug dealer. "She's a bit of a spicy, spicy girl. And she brings just a bit of pzazz to the whole thing to be honest. It was incredible to play the role, you know, because she was just a bit feral. 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Being a nosey so and so, before the interview ends I have to ask what Seymour – a former Bond girl and probably best known for playing Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman in the hit US show that ran for six seasons – was like. "She still looks amazing," Maria says. "Oh my God. She is such a lovely woman. Like, when we went on set in the morning, she laid out all these canvases and watercolours at one of the tables that we would all sit at while we were waiting to film. "And she sat us down and she was talking us through how to paint watercolours. The woman was so Zen. I've never seen a woman so Zen!" Ms Seymour also showed impressive levels of professionalism when called on to perform for the cameras. "They'd be like, OK, Jane," says Maria. "And she'd just saunter over. I didn't once see her do a read-through. "She's not doing a read through - those lines are just there. They're there in her head. I'm like, 'Oh my God, that's so impressive.' And she was just such a beautiful woman."
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Irish maestro John O'Conor to join international stars for New Ross Piano Festival
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