Oscar Winner Marketa Irglova Chooses Her Own Path on Solo Debut
By Andrew Clayman
Published in The Cleveland Scene, November 2011
It’s been almost four years since a 19 year-old Marketa Irglova became the youngest person—and first Czech—to win an Academy Award for music; sharing “Best Original Song” honors with her Once co-star (and then boyfriend) Glen Hansard. At the Oscars ceremony, her acceptance speech was initially short-circuited by a premature orchestral send-off, but when host Jon Stewart shepherded her back to the microphone moments later, the soft-spoken but passionate Irglova proved herself a star in the making.
Within that context, the October release of a now 23 year-old Irglova’s debut solo album (following several years of touring with Hansard as The Swell Season) seems a tad overdue. But as Irglova explains, there were never any grand ambitions in place for her own career, despite that early success.
“I never really chose this for myself,” she says, speaking from her adopted home in New York City. “Music kind of chose me, and I hopped on an already moving train and joined the circus, basically.”
Both Once and The Swell Season were products of Irglova’s relationship with the Irish rocker Hansard, who had personally recruited the young pianist before she had put much thought into her own long term goals. The two split as a couple in 2009 (they remain friends), but it wasn’t until the Swell Season went on temporary hiatus in 2010 that Irglova decided to set to work on her own album, Anar.
“At that point, I could have either stopped making music for a while and waited for the band to go back on tour, or I could create a circumstance in which I could continue on this path and really commit to doing this as best I can,” Irglova says. “So it became a totally new experience really. With The Swell Season, it was mainly Glen’s vision and his intentions driving it on, whereas this time, it’s my own vision that I was trying to manifest. So there’s a lot more responsibility for me to handle now, but there’s also new rewards that come with it. It’s very gratifying and empowering.”
As an album of mostly low-key, introspective piano ballads, Anar captures Irglova in a fascinating transitional phase—inspired by her move to New York; the unique artistic and cultural influence of her Iranian friend and collaborator Aida Shahghasemi; and a budding romance with her sound engineer / new husband, Tim Iseler.
In a way, Irglova’s musical and romantic partnership with Iseler again mirrors the love-through-collaboration theme of Once. But even as Broadway prepares to unveil its adaptation of that film to the stage (Irglova approves of the musical but was only loosely involved), it’s worth noting that Irglova herself has mostly “moved on” from that period of her life—with few regrets, but plenty of lessons.
“I definitely feel like I learned a lot,” she says. “As much as I was absorbed in that experience [with Once], I was also very lost, in a way, for much of that time, and searching for answers-- as so many people do at that age. I hadn’t really made up my mind about what I wanted to be or where I was going. And I don’t think you ever really stop searching, really. But I definitely feel much more confident about my place in the world now.”
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