Michael Seaver's Avatar

Michael Seaver

@mseaver

Clarinettist with RTÉ Concert Orchestra @rteco.rte.ie Dance Critic with The Irish Times @irishtimes.com Amateur psephologist Walks a lot.

132
Followers
159
Following
195
Posts
18.10.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Michael Seaver @mseaver

This is wonderful! And forks are perfect to break up the sorbet while saving the Prosecco’s effervescence.

25.08.2025 17:41 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

On this evening five years ago: members of the Oireachtas Golf Society sat down for a dinner. Or was it two dinners?

Anyway. Five years.

19.08.2025 20:17 👍 108 🔁 10 💬 8 📌 6
Preview
Jonathan Coe · Don’t we all want to be happy? Satie against Solemnity Erik Satie is the progenitor of torch songs and lounge music, systems music and minimalism, even (with his later...

‘Erik Satie is the progenitor of torch songs and lounge music, systems music and minimalism, even (with his later innovation, “musique d’ameublement”) muzak and ambient music. Mahler’s influence, by comparison, has been non-existent.’

Jonathan Coe on the composer:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

07.08.2025 12:19 👍 36 🔁 7 💬 3 📌 3

It’s a wonderful book, whatever the format!

05.08.2025 21:12 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

CLARIFICATION: Bank Holiday Sunday in Ireland. Apologies to those working tomorrow feeling cocktail hour FOMO.

03.08.2025 22:16 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Bank Holiday Sunday. The Last Flight. A riff on the Last Word and the Paper Plane. Delicious! 🍽️🍸

03.08.2025 21:24 👍 19 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Can’t wait to dive into all the recommendations for #witmonth. For what it’s worth here are mine, due entirely to the @dublinlitaward.bsky.social

02.08.2025 13:29 👍 7 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

The arts landscape needs more than just artists and Sean was an exemplary advocate and mediator for the ideas and ideals us artists are usually a bit crap at representing. Heartbroken for Catriona and the two boys.

31.07.2025 21:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

In an era of generalists, it was his deep understanding of the sweat and commitment to produce art that made his interviews so genuine and unpredictable.

31.07.2025 21:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

With utmost respect to Mike Murphy and Miles Dungan, I doubt that anyone could sustain a radio arts show in RTÉ for so long so successfully - a testament to his knowledge, enthusiasm and power of connection.

31.07.2025 21:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

He interviewed me on occasion, but we had a multiple of conversations off-air, in the corridor or at boring receptions. Whenever we spoke he had an unquenchable appetite for knowledge about dance and music, and anything else I might have read or seen.

31.07.2025 21:52 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I first came across Sean in a performance of Frank Pig Says Hello in Garter Lane in the early 1990s (he learned the trumpet for this role) and a few years later in Portia Coughlan in the Peacock. Not long after I got to know him as he transitioned to broadcasting on Lyric FM and then on RTÉ Radio 1.

31.07.2025 21:52 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

(Less heartened by the self-serving statements from certain politicians who would never chose to listen to Arena.)

31.07.2025 21:51 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Still reeling after hearing of the death of Sean Rocks. So heartened by the lovely tributes from the arts and broadcasting community, as well as the listenership that Sean connected with through his articulate and accessible programmes and interviews.

31.07.2025 21:50 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Post image

Jacques D'Amboise and Tanaquil Le Clercq in “The Afternoon of a Fawn”- performed in Paris New York City Ballet - June, 1955

28.07.2025 20:25 👍 11 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Franz Löwy (1883-1949)
Photograph of a dance recording by at the “Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes” in Paris in 1925
#photography #dancer #dancing #dance #FranzLöwy #Löwy

23.07.2025 10:12 👍 63 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
Photo of a tv. Onscreen a woman holds an axe with a periodic table visible behind.

Photo of a tv. Onscreen a woman holds an axe with a periodic table visible behind.

Buffy is so old there were only 103 named elements, we’re at 118 now.

(Yes I pause every show that has a periodic table to see if its period accurate)

27.07.2025 09:35 👍 7092 🔁 1166 💬 136 📌 91
Video thumbnail

Ozzy Osbourne meets Paul McCartney for the first time, 2001.

22.07.2025 18:22 👍 10735 🔁 1480 💬 176 📌 82
Post image

The Champs-Élysées. Santé! 🍸 🍽️

13.07.2025 07:31 👍 15 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Members of the England Football team seen here during a visit to the Pinewood film studios. Bobby Moore, Nobby Stiles, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters are seen here with Yul Brynner and Sean Connery. July 1966

11.07.2025 16:07 👍 7 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Lynchburg Lemonades. Happy 4th from Ireland y’all! 🍸 🍽️

04.07.2025 19:45 👍 13 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Video thumbnail

Season Two of Harmonically Speaking kicks off with superstar jazz clarinettist, Giacomo Smith!

I’m an enormous fan of his, and was delighted to interview him last year when he was performing with Guy the @rteco.rte.ie

Hope you enjoy it!

Available on:
Acast: shows.acast.com/66492ab0b684...

21.06.2025 12:48 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Raspberry Lemon Drop. 🍸 🍽️

21.06.2025 13:29 👍 26 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Alicia Alonso & Igor Youskevitch Ballet Theatre, 1947

18.06.2025 18:23 👍 7 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Looking forward to performing some sublime chamber music this Friday as part of the Music in Calary Church piano festival.

Alongside Mozart Kegelstatt and Schumann Märchenerzählungen, we’re playing Bruch and the trio by Julius Röntgen - a rare chance to hear this oft overlooked work!

16.06.2025 11:13 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

But you were referring to Dublin. Yes, of course lots of writers also depicted the soul of the city.

15.06.2025 22:30 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Ah, of course Anton. And shamefully ignored writers like Maurice Leith, Eugene McCabe. God I could go on...

15.06.2025 22:27 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

But I completely agree with you about the response we all have to books (although I would avoid the "good" label). Reading is a wonderful private encounter. I have read books years ago that I still think about (The Dublin Literary prize winner Idaho by Emily Ruskovich still haunts me).

15.06.2025 22:25 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I'm no fan of the elitist museum, but there is an argument that certain novels are more important because of their significance at the time rather than contemporary relevance.

15.06.2025 22:21 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

But I don't know of one that captures Dublin in the earlier 1900s so well. And as I said earlier, I despise the intellectual snobbery around Joyce and Ulysses.

15.06.2025 22:18 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0