We lost a great one in Glen Hansard

Glen Hansard was the kind of performer who could make a small room feel enormous — and then make a theater feel as intimate as a Dublin street corner.

The Irish singer-songwriter, who led The Frames and won an Oscar for “Falling Slowly” from the film “Once,” died Wednesday at 56 following a motorcycle crash in Dublin, according to a statement from his management.

Hansard was an intensely alive performer, whether singing in a whisper or attacking his battered guitar at full force.

Pittsburgh got an early look at that intensity when Hansard and his veteran Irish band The Frames hit Club Cafe in 2002. He arrived just before showtime looking disheveled and out of breath.

It didn’t take long for Hansard to settle in and mesmerize the crowd with those whisper-to-a-roar dynamics.

That night, he seemed too big for the room. And yet, it was impossible to picture the shaggy former Dublin busker as a guy who would one day step to the podium to collect an Oscar.

That happened in 2008, when “Falling Slowly,” the song Hansard wrote and performed with Czech musician Markéta Irglová for the indie film “Once,” beat out three songs from Disney’s “Enchanted” and one from “August Rush” to win the Academy Award for best original song.

Hansard, the ultimate Oscar outsider, walked onstage saying, “This is amazing. What are we doing here? This is mad.”

Hansard described it as trying to kick a ball across the yard, only to have it clear the fence and land in the river.

“When Cillian Murphy was attached [to ‘Once’], I thought, ‘Great, maybe more people are going to get a chance to hear my songs,’ but that was the extent,” Hansard told me in a 2008 interview before a Swell Season concert at the Byham Theater. “It was still a modest movie at that point. After he pulled out, it went from modest to ‘This doesn’t stand a chance outside of some Frames fans.’

“So, yes, we were all surprised and amazed by the success of ‘Once.’ Every day still it feels like a ripple effect where someone else or something else happens based on this movie.”

“Once” was a triumph not only for Hansard and Irglová but for former Frames bassist John Carney, who wrote and directed the film for approximately $150,000. Carney had played with Hansard in The Frames in the early ’90s, when the band was still signed to a major label.

Having since been dropped, Hansard was well prepared to play the down-on-his-luck musician. The singer, who had appeared in the 1991 film “The Commitments,” starred in “Once” as a thirtysomething Dublin busker and vacuum-repairman who befriends a shy Czech flower seller, played by Irglová.

Unlike in a Hollywood romance, the relationship never blooms in the expected fashion because of their commitments to other people. Musically, though, they prove to be a sublime pairing, producing acoustic-rock treasures with supple and occasionally soaring harmonies.

The story offscreen veered from the script. Hansard and Irglová, who had first worked together on the 2006 album “The Swell Season,” fell in love and became a couple.

Hansard said their initial connection, personally and musically, was much like the scene in “Once” in which they sit down together in a music store and discover how naturally their voices fit together.

“We did connect right away, and it was very much like what you see in the film,” he said. “Our characters in the film are not that different than what we are like in real life. I think John Carney saw that in us and used it to his benefit.”

The modest film turned Hansard and Irglová into unlikely stars and sent them on what Hansard called a “victory lap.” A year before winning the Oscar, they had performed for about 75 people in a New York piano bar. On the return trip, they were booked into the 6,000-seat Radio City Music Hall.

The abrupt fame was jarring for an artist who had spent years concentrating more on music than celebrity.

“Our private lives got turned upside down, and there has been no stopping the amount of work we’ve continued to do,” Hansard said. “That said, in no way am I complaining, as it’s the most amazing thing to happen to us ever. But, yes, it is a challenge on all aspects of your life.”

Hansard brought The Frames along as The Swell Season’s backing band, introducing the new audience to Frames songs such as “Revelate,” “What Happens When the Heart Just Stops” and “Fitzcarraldo.”

He was painfully aware, though, that the breakthrough had happened not to The Frames but to Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.

“There are folks that are just here to see the ‘Once’ people,” he said, “but hopefully we can win them over and, more importantly, I think there are a lot of new fans of our music. It’s those folks in particular we want to see take the journey with us.”

When The Swell Season returned to Pittsburgh for a 2010 concert at the Byham, Hansard and Irglová were no longer romantically involved. They remained musical partners, though, and any fear that the magic of “Once” had evaporated was quickly put to rest.

Hansard admitted halfway through the concert that he had been worried about Irglová, who had been battling a cold. She certainly didn’t sound like it.

Their voices meshed beautifully on the fragile melodies and heavenly harmonies that contrasted with Hansard’s rougher, more passionate delivery. He could be tender one moment and erupt the next, stomping his foot and slashing at his guitar.

Irglová took the spotlight for the delicate “If You Want Me,” one of four songs she performed from her side of the “Once” soundtrack. Hansard responded with his own wounded ballads and Frames favorites, at times singing off-microphone and letting his weathered voice fill the theater naturally.

The show was beautiful, spirited and passionate — a tribute to two musicians whose personal relationship had changed but whose voices still belonged together.

Hansard and Irglová eventually went on to solo careers, with Hansard releasing a series of increasingly reflective and musically expansive albums. His 2015 album “Didn’t He Ramble” earned a Grammy nomination for best folk album.

The Broadway adaptation of “Once” became another major success, winning eight Tony Awards, including best musical. Hansard later received a Grammy for the musical’s cast album.

The Swell Season story wasn’t finished, either. Hansard and Irglová reunited to release “Forward” in 2025, their first album together in 16 years. Earlier this year, Hansard released the two-part live collection “Don’t Settle,” recorded over two nights in 2025 and drawing from throughout his career.

The unlikely ripple effect he described in 2008 continued for nearly two decades.

Hansard wondered then whether the people drawn in by “Once” would follow him and Irglová down whatever road came next. Many of them did, discovering The Frames, The Swell Season and the solo work of a singer who never lost the immediacy of the teenage busker he had once been.

Hansard was friends with Pittsburgh-based Irish singer-songwriter Mark Dignam and former Pittsburgher Karl Mullen.

“I’m just devastated by the news of Glen’s death,” Mullen texted me. “I cried all morning, listened back to his songs. I can’t really process what a loss that not only the Irish feel but everyone all over the world. His music and songs resonated deep in our collective psyche. Glen Hansard made a difference in this world, and we are the better for it.”

We are expecting to comment from both on his passing.