“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
Belfast born 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.
"an animated musical experience, full of frenetic time changes, fearsome collisions, and instant recoveries, wild excesses, and tender reveries……exquisite”. THE GUARDIAN
2024 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD WINNER
A Children’s Guide To Anarchy (an Easterhouse Children’s Manifesto) Oakwood Primary/Red Note Ensemble/Dumbworld Production
THE APPRENTICE (film score) - SHORTLISTED FOR PALM’ DOR, CANNES 2024 (Co-composed with David Holmes)
2023 OLIVIER AWARD (Nomination -Opera Category)
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 *****
WINNER - IVOR NOVELLO AWARD 2023 (Opera/Stage Works category)
Least Like The Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy - UK Premiere: Royal Opera House London, Jan 2023
THE FLATS (Film Score) - film by Allseandra Cellesia) WINNER OF MAIN PRIZE AT CPH:DOX 2024
2024 NORTHERN IRELAND TELEVISION AWARD- THE WOMAN IN THE WALL (Co-composed with David Holmes)
2023 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD (Nomination -Orchestral category)
A Mon Seul Desir - for violin and orchestra BBC RADIO 3Darragh Morgan (violin) /Ulster Orchestra (Jac Van Steen)
2023 IVOR NOVELLO AWARD (Nomination -Opera Category)
The Scorched Earth Trilogy (A Triptych of Projected Street Art Operas created with Dumbworld partner John McIlduff )
His huge output includes operas, film scores, large scale oratorios, orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo 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, London Symphony Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Red Note Ensemble, Ulster Orchestra, Fidelio Trio to name but a few.
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.
His recent opera 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 (BASCA’s) and won two. 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.
In 2022 his work for violin and orchestra: A Mon Seul Desir was recorded for the BBC Radio 3 New Music Programme and 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 score for the 6-part BBC drama: The Woman in the Wall (by Joe Murtagh) and Ordinary Love (starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Mannville, written by Owen McCafferty and 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 Laundromat.
In 2023 he conducted and premiered his large-scale work FAT CHAIR for the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland 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 adn Mili Percherer created the first stage of the gmes world opera It’s All Going The Same Way for large ensemble and soloists.
He loves to paint, isn’t great at DIY but can do a Rubic’s cube in a fairly respectable time.
