Olivier Award nominated and four time Ivor Novello Award winning composer, Brian Irvine’s unique musical world combines the known and the unknown, the free and the fixed, the schooled and the unschooled. He is driven by a single desire to connect, disrupt, reinvent and re-imagine all aspects of life, people, society, art and understanding in any and as many ways possible. 

“Some of the most exhilarating and imaginative music you'll ever hope to hear……musical play in the highest sense: exuberant, spontaneous and irresistibly alive.”  ……WASHINGTON POST

"an animated musical experience, full of frenetic time changes, fearsome collisions, and instant recoveries, wild excesses, and tender reveries……exquisite”…….. THE GUARDIAN

"Shite!”…..NME

His huge output includes operas, large scale oratorios, orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo, film scores, and dance works as well as games and installations. Often combining and layering diverse, experimental and opposing elements his music has been commissioned, broadcast and performed all over the world by a vast array of performers and organisations, including Irish National Opera, BBC, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Red Note Ensemble, Ulster Orchestra, Fidelio Trio to name but a few. 

2023 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD WINNER AND 2023 OLIVIER AWARD NOMINATION (opera)

Least Like The Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy UK Premiere: Royal Opera House London, Jan 2023

“Deeply disturbing art…. vibrant, relevant and compelling”

IRISH TIMES ***** THE SUNDAY TIMES ***** GUARDIAN ***** THE STAGE ***** THE INDEPENDENT *****

He has collaborated and made work with artists from vastly different disciplines including Seamus Heaney, Keiji Haino, Willie Doherty, Primal Scream, David Holmes, Joanna Macgregor, Paul Dunmall, Eduard Bersudsky, U2 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.

2024 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD WINNER: A Children’s Guide To Anarchy (An Easterhouse Children’s Manifesto)

20232 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD WINNER: Anything But Bland for orchestra, chorus and soloists

is recent opera (a collaboration with Director/Designer Netia Jones) Least Like the Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy won the 2023 Ivor Novello Award for opera and was shortlisted in the same year for an Olivier Award. He has been nominated for 6 British Composer Awards/Ivor Classical Awards and won four. He has also been awarded the BBC Radio 3 Jazz Award (with his own 13-piece ensemble) and the UK’s most prestigious Paul Hamlyn Composers Award. He is Co-Artistic Director and founder of the internationally award-winning creative production company Dumbworld, part-time 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.

2023 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD NOMINATION: A Mon Seul Desir - for violin and orchestra BBC RADIO 3

2023 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD NOMINATION: The Scorched Earth Trilogy (A Triptych of Projected Street Art Operas)

2024 NORTHERN IRELAND TELEVISION AWARD WINNER: Best score for The Woman In The Wall (Co-composed with David Holmes)

HIn 2022 his work for violin and orchestra: A Mon Seul Desir was recorded for the BBC Radio 3 New Music Programme and it was shortlisted for an Ivor Novello Award the same year. The Scorched Earth Trilogy (a triptych of projected street art operas created with Dumbworld partner John McIllduff ) was also shortlisted for the 2023 Ivor Novello Award in the opera/stage works category.  Recent collaborations with composer David Holmes include the scores for The Apprentice (Palm D’or nominated) Siapan, The Woman in the Wall, Trespasses and Ordinary Love (starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Mannville, written by Owen McCafferty; directed by Glen Leyburn and Lis Barros D’S ). He has also worked with David Holmes on Neil Jordan’s: Marlowe and Steven Soderberg’s The Christophers, The Laundromat and No Sudden Move. Other notable film scores include Behold The Lamb (John McIlduff), The Bookseller of Belfast (Allesandra Cellesia) and The Flats (Allesandra Cellesia).

In 2023 he conducted and premiered his large-scale work FAT CHAIR for the RTE National Symphony Orchestra and the multi ability The Totally Made-Up Orchestra as part of New Music Dublin. A New Topography of Love: a new work for video game, ensemble and singers is currently touring numerous venues throughout UK and Ireland and his theatre work for children: Wires, Things and Other Things (a collaboration with Wouter Van Looy and Zonzo Compagnie, Belgium) also recently completed an extensive tour of European theatres.

In 2025 Brian along with John McIlduff and film director/writer Mili Percherer created the first stage performance of their AI games world opera It’s All Going The Same Way for large ensemble and soloists and their new dance opera Where We Bury The Bones was premiered as part of The Kilkenny International Arts Festival in August 2025.