Adrian Spence, Camerata Pacifica’s Founder and Artistic Director, comes from Newtownards, a small town close to Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast. He is representative of the country’s 21st century global population. A product of the diaspora, his studies took him to London and the United States where, in 1990, he founded Camerata Pacifica. In 2006 he commissioned the Belfast composer Ian Wilson to write three works for the Camerata, the first of these being The Messenger Concerto for Violin & Chamber Ensemble, written for the Camerata’s Principal Violinist, the Cork-born Catherine Leonard. This work provided the impetus for The Messenger Project which saw the ensemble present the work in Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Marino, at the Los Angeles Cathedral, The Library of Congress in Washington DC, New York’s Morgan Library, Dublin’s National Concert Hall, The Guildhall in Derry, St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast and London’s Wigmore Hall.

The Messenger Project became representative of Ireland’s 21st century identity — peaceful, sophisticated and integrated internationally. Spence’s unionist protestant background and Leonard’s Catholic upbringing provided a metaphor for the island peacefully working together. “Music,” in the words of the Irish Consul General Tim O’Connor, “was the medium of engagement.” Diplomatic, political and business interests gathered around the project to celebrate the new Ireland.

The success of the project — musically and otherwise — provided the inspiration to commission other works and celebrate the national backgrounds of the ensemble’s other artists. Thus was born Messenger.