An Irish conductor will be the first woman ever to take charge of the orchestra at the Oscars this year.
Galway-born composer Eimear Noone, who has conducted the RTE National Symphony Orchestra in the past, will make history when she conducts excerpts from the five nominated scores at the Academy Awards.
Taking to social media to share her delight, Noone thanked “visionary producers Stephanie Allain and Lynette Howell Taylor and the incredible Rickey Minor, genius music director,” for inviting her to perform at the Dolby Theatre on February 9.
Minor is expected to conduct the rest of the show, as he did during his initial Oscar gig last year.
Speaking to Variety, Noone went on to credit him further, saying: “[How] generous he is, to hand over this incredibly poignant moment, as these [composers] are my heroes and she-roes, who will be sitting in the audience, whose music I get to interpret."
Noone, who along with her husband, composer-producer Craig Stuart Garfinkle, divides her time between homes in Dublin and California, conducting 40 to 50 concerts a year around the world.
She was was the first woman to conduct at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, and for four years she conducted the Dublin City Concert Orchestra, an ensemble she founded at 21 for the performance of film music.
She has also conducted many orchestras around the world including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, National Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic of London and the Sydney Symphony in Australia.
Yet despite her vast experience, she said she will definitely be feeling the nerves ahead of the big event.
She said: “The wonderful producers at the Oscars decided that they would like to finally see a female presence on the podium after all these years.
“I’d be dead inside if I didn’t have any concerns. Luckily for me, I have friends in the orchestra and I have friends on the page in front of me.
“The background changes, but the little black dots on the page are always home for me.
“No matter what country I’m in or what concert hall, it doesn’t matter – the score is where my mind and my heart are.”
She added: “It’s an honor to be there, to help normalize something that I do every day.
“Little girls everywhere will see this and say, ‘I think I’ll do that.’ That’s what we want.”
She joins Saoirse Ronan in representing Ireland at this year’s Oscars.
Ronan received her fourth Oscar nomination earlier this month, shortlisted in the Best Actress category for Little Women.
