Brian Irvine

Brian Irvine’s unique musical world combines the known and the unknown, the free and the fixed, the schooled and the unschooled. His huge output includes operas, large scale oratorios, orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo and dance works as well as film scores and installations. His music has been commissioned, broadcast and performed all over the world by a vast array of performers and organisations including the London Symphony Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Red Note Ensemble, Ulster Orchestra, Joanna MacGregor, Fidelio Trio, ex-paramilitaries, flute bands, young offenders .. to name but a few. He has collaborated and made work with artists from vastly different disciplines including Seamus Heaney, Cy Twombly, Paul Dunmall, Keiji Haino, Eduard Bersudsky, David Holmes and Jennifer Walshe. He has won two British Composer Awards, the BBC Radio 3 Jazz Award (with his own 13 piece ensemble) and more recently the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Composers Award. He is Co-Artistic Director of the creative production company Dumbworld and Professor of Music at Ulster University. He was Associate Composer with the Ulster Orchestra for four years and in 2016 he was appointed first Music Laureate for the City of Belfast. He is excellent at doing Rubix’s Cubes but is utterly rubbish at DIY.