大象传媒

Born in Belfast, composer Brian Irvine’s unique musical world combines the known and the unknown, the free and the fixed, the schooled and the unschooled.His huge compositional output includes operas, large scale oratorios, orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo and dance works as well as film scores and installations. Often combining and layering diverse and opposing elements 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, Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, Irish National Opera, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, New Music Dublin, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Red Note Ensemble, Ulster Orchestra, Joanna MacGregor, Fidelio Trio.

He is driven by a single desire to connect, disrupt, reinvent and reimagine all aspects of life, people, society, art and understanding in any and as many ways possible. Drawing on a wide range of subject matter his work explores the space between form and style He has collaborated and made work with artists from vastly different disciplines including Seamus Heaney, Willie Doherty, Paul Dunmall, Eduard Bersudsky, Netia Jones, David Holmes, Snow Patrol, Keiji Haino and Jennifer Walshe as well as thousands of groups and individuals from all dimensions of society including ex-paramilitaries, young offenders, victims of violence, special needs groups, residential homes, community choirs, gardeners, footballers, bankers, homeless associations, call centre workers and schools.

Brian has been nominated for 5 British Composer Awards (BASCA’s) and has won two, he has also been awarded the 大象传媒 Radio 3 Jazz Award (with his own 13-piece ensemble) and more recently the UK’s most prestigious Paul Hamlyn Composers Award. He is Co-Artistic Director of the internationally award winning creative production company Dumbworld, Professor of Music at Ulster University and was Associate Composer with the Ulster Orchestra for four years. In 2016 became the first Music Laureate for the City of Belfast and was awarded an MBE for services to music in 2011.

He is co-artistic director and founder of the multi award winning production company DUMBWORLD along with director/filmaker/writer John McIlduff. Most recently his opera with Irish National Opera and UK designer/director Netia Jones - Least Like The Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy received widespread critical acclaim at its world premiere as part of the Galway International Arts Festival and more recently at the Royal Opera House, London in Jan 2023.

Recently the projected street art triptych: The Scorched Earth Trilogy received critical acclaim at it world premiere in Dublin and Rotterdam in 202. In Nov 2019 his projected street art opera He Did What received its USA premiere as part of the New Wave Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and in Sept 2020, Kunstfest Festival in Weimar, Germany featured and staged 7 of his street art operas back to back.

He has written over 20 film scores and his recent film score collaborations with composer/producer David Holmes include Ordinary Love (starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville) and The Laundromat (starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, David Schwimmer and Sharon Stone) as well as Marlowe directed by Neil Jordan. More recently he has completed the film score for Italian director Allesandra Cellesia’s THE FLATS due to be released in autumn 2023. He is excellent at doing Rubix’s Cubes but is utterly rubbish at DIY.