“I remember an early concert of An Uaithne that featured Henry Purcell’s Ode to Saint Cecilia paired with Benjamin Britten’s “Hymn to Saint Cecilia” in the first part of the concert and a collection of medieval and Irish songs, which included one of my own, but also featured choral arrangements I had done of pieces by the Irish group Clannad. The finale of that concert was in front of a full house at St. Ann’s Church in Dublin, a raucous cacophony of viols, recorders, harps and singers lashing out Clannad’s arrangement of “Dúlamán”.

The mainstream music audience in and around Dublin began to pay attention to the group and a healthy buzz could be felt around the concerts. They even released an unimaginatively titled cassette that is now somewhat of a collector’s item. In December 1990 the choir recorded a track with Producer/Engineer Brian Masterson, who remains Michael’s chief recording collaborator today. In 1991 a concert at Dublin's Project Arts Centre heralded a crystallisation of all the ideas that had been floating around up to that time.

“The music itself was pretty eclectic, something that has sustained the ensemble over thirty years. I had grown so much in confidence myself that the bulk of the concert featured my own compositions.

We presented a “show” rather than just a concert, with movement, lights and sound amplification. Even the weak puddle of dry ice that managed only to splutter across the edge of the stage was more-than-a-bit thrilling to behold and the overall performance probably one of the most avant garde presentations that we have done. The concert included the first performance of "The Rising of the Sun", specially commissioned by the Project Arts Centre and a collection of contemporary Irish choral music by various composers. The response to my own music was overwhelming and it gave me the confidence to focus on arrangements and original compositions of my own. 

Michael’s brother John McGlynn joined the group at this point bringing a common sense approach to the performances.

“He kept drawing me back to the fact that elitism should have no place in any genre of music, constantly emphasising that there was no point in doing this at all if it couldn’t be communicated to everyone rather than the few who claimed to appreciate and understand choral music.

At this time I began to explore the connections between music and ritualistic movement. Movement has historically been part of communal music making, from the earliest era of the Christian Church through to the processions and secular dramas that became popular in the Middle Ages.

While many choirs move in performance none move quite like we do. So much is dependent on the space we sing in, the connections inherent in the spaces we inhabit as artists. Singing into the space encouraged me to create music designed for movement and space. Many of the works that define ANÚNA today were developed during this time and how something is presented to the audience has become more important than technical perfection”.

Anyone who has seen ANÚNA in performance will probably have seen them perform Michael’s arrangement of the Irish song “Jerusalem”.

“I’ve never spoken about the creation of this piece before. The first performance of the work was in 1991 in Trinity College Dublin Chapel. I wanted to emulate the sounds of the sea, undulating and whispering. But nothing ethereal. It had to be forceful and powerful, still and yet ever-changing.

I had already experienced Gaelic Psalm Singing and that had inspired me to approach this work in a similar way, with a cantor and response. Psalm singing is about a congregation of voices, each singing its own hymn of adulation, but unified in a spectacularly random way.