Anne-Marie Gibbons: "You have to follow your heart"

On a Monday afternoon last March, Anne Marie Gibbons received an unexpected phone call. She was asked to come to London urgently to perform in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden’s production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny the following day.

It was going to be the mezzo-soprano’s first operatic role in the iconic venue in London and, of course, she couldn’t let the opportunity pass.

She boarded a plane from Knock to London for a whirlwind performance, which was highly acclaimed by the audience and critics alike. Upon returning home to Co Mayo the day after the career-changing concert, she found another, and slightly sobering, job, waiting for her.

“It was lambing time … so I was out bottle feeding the pet lambs with our two children on my brother’s farm the day after I performed in Covent Garden,” she says. “It was very funny. It was like going from the sublime to the ridiculous or vice versa.”

Though she has performed across the world, from Paris to Adelaide and London, Anne Marie almost didn’t become a singer. After growing up on a farm in Louisburgh, Co Mayo, and with a music-loving family, she pursued a degree in psychology in UCD before securing a job in AIB in Dublin.

Music was always a passion though, and she even undertook lessons in the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama during her undergrad at UCD. After a while at AIB, she decided to take a career break to study vocal and opera studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

“It got to a stage where music was beginning to take a firmer hold,” she explains. “I was working in a permanent, pensionable job at the time. I took a career break, so I had a safety net, but I don’t think I would have gone back.”

Anne Marie then went on to secure a contract with the English National Opera, based in Trafalgar Square in London, averaging around five or six productions per year. However, after marrying Hugh Francis, an Australian-born tenor, the decision was made to move back to Mayo to start a family.

“London is a very fast and wonderful city. Living there necessitates the use of a lot of public transport and I didn’t fancy trundling a buggy up and down steps and on to buses, trains and tubes etc. Also, as Hugh works as a tenor internationally, the idea of being on my own with children in central London didn’t appeal to me ,” she says.

Now based in Castlebar with two young children, Tom and Emma, the couple run the Mayo Vocal Academy. Can she see the kids taking after their parents?

“They’re musical but it’s early days yet. Tom is only five and Emma is three and a half,” says Anne Marie.

“It’s very interesting though because the other night Hugh had one of our students over for a lesson. I was in the kitchen and Emma, who was in her room, could hear the lesson. Through the child monitor I could hear her copy the vocal exercises perfectly in tune. I thought it was hilarious, picked up the monitor and brought it in to where the guys were in the studio and they were in disbelief.”

Knock Concert for Peace

Anne Marie is also one of the main organisers of the upcoming Knock Concert For Peace, which takes place on Saturday 14 May as part of the Mayo International Choral Festival. The concert will take place in the newly refurbished Knock Basilica, which Anne Marie describes as a “fantastic setting” for the event, which marks the centenaries of the 1916 Rising and World War I.

“This year is going to be the fifth year of the festival and we decided it would be nice to do something to celebrate the anniversary and commemorate the decade of centenaries,” she says.

“It’s the first concert of this nature since the massive refurbishment of the basilica, which happened over a six-month period. They did a fabulous job and recently they had the installation of a 14m-high mosaic over the altar. It is comprised of 1.8m pieces and is just stunningly beautiful,” she adds.

The concert will be conducted by David Brophy of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, with around 140 singers in the choir comprising of members from Dun Laoghaire Choral Society and two Mayo-based choirs, Cór Mhaigh Eo and Ballina Chamber Choir. Sibéal Ní Chasaide, who performed at the Centenary concert, will sing Mise Éire.

Anne Marie has settled back into country life after her years in London, though she moved to a different part of Mayo to where she grew up. Hugh enjoys the rural life too and is no stranger to it, coming from a farming background in Australia.

“It was a matter of settling back in Mayo again. Castlebar is a lovely town and I found it really welcoming. There’s a good community spirit here and people look out for each other,” she says.

After her decision to chase a career in music slightly later in life, we ask what kind of advice Anne Marie gives her own students.

“You have to follow your heart, you really do,” she says. “A question I found myself asking was, irrespective of outcome, if I didn’t give music a go, would I regret it in 10 years’ time? If the answer to that question is yes, you just have to do it. There’s no point in looking back and wondering what would have happened.”

The concert will be produced in association with the The Western Development Commission and The Mayo Clinic, and will take place in Knock Basilica, Co Mayo, at 8pm. To purchase tickets, visit www.mayochoral.com. Tickets cost €25 and €15 for general admission.