Elaine Agnew’s substantial body of work covers all genres from opera, video games and contemporary dance to instrumental and choral music. She has been commissioned extensively, reaching audiences across the world from the London Film Festival and BBC Proms to Gamers to outreach workshop participants.
Working with Vienna-based Game Developers Causa Creations, Elaine created the soundtrack for Songs of Travel, now available on iOS and Android. Recently nominated for best game by Pocket Gamer, the number 1 site for gaming on the go, this Animated Graphic Novel was recently showcased at the 2025 London Film Festival. Chosen as one of BBC Radio’s 3’s Composers in Lockdown as well as being featured at the 2024 Classical:NEXT@Holzmarkt in Berlin, Elaine’s music has been performed in renowned venues like the Carnegie, Wigmore and Royal Albert Halls. Her work currently features on 18 discs and her choral music is published by Boosey & Hawkes and Cailíno Music Publishers.
Recent premieres include Hurry Home! featuring young musicians and singers from Music Generation Louth, The Magdalene Songs at the Oxford International Song Festival and West Cork Chamber Music Festival and The Offing, premiered by the Belfast Philharmonic Society in the Ulster Hall, Belfast while the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble performed Green during their recent tour of Chile. Upcoming premieres include Velvet Shoes by the Californian girls choir iSing Silicon Valley and What the Future Holds by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and Cór Linn, as well as a new work for string ensemble Evlana Sinfonietta . A member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored body of creative artists, Elaine’s 2012 BBC Proms commission Dark Hedges was described by one London reviewer as ‘compelling from beginning to end’.
Exciting News!
Two Major New Commissions to be Premiered in 2027!
A new commission from the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland What the Future Holds will see them joined by the young singers of Cór Linn in the National Concert Hall on 12th February 2027, setting a new specially created text directed by poet Jessica Traynor and including the words of the young singers themselves as well as a new work for the string ensemble Evlana Sinfonietta to be premiered in 2028.
CD Release by Choral Scholars of University College Dublin
The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin and director Desmond Earley are proud to release their album James Joyce Chamber Music Volume 1. This album reimagines Joyce’s poetry through rich choral textures and expressive contemporary settings, bringing together Ireland’s literary and musical heritage in a moving celebration of word and sound. Elaine’s setting of Joyce’s poem XX In the dark pine-wood features on the album.
Composer-In-Residence with Music Generation Louth: ‘25-’28
Elaine was appointed Composer in Residence with Music Generation Louth for a 3-year period, funded through Music Generation’s Creativity and Collaboration Fund which supports projects that create opportunities for children and young people to progress and grow as musicians, taking them to the next level in their artistic growth. Hurry Home!, created during her first year, is a celebration of Winter and Christmas and involved 2 school choirs, Réalta Chamber Choir as well as young instrumentalists from Drogheda Music Hub. Premiered in December 2025 at St Peter’s Church, Drogheda, the text was facilitated/narrated by BBC broadcaster/writer John Toal. Oriel Re-Imagined is her second year project and involves children and young people form the Cooley Peninsula with a performance at Féile na Tána on 31st January 2027.
Velvet Shoes to be premiered in California
Velvet Shoes was recorded and filmed on 15th June in Mission Santa Clara de Asís in Santa Clara by the Californian girls choir iSing Silicon Valley along with the Friction Quartet and guests and directed by Artistic Director/Co-Founder Jennah Delp Somers. A setting of a beautiful winter poem by Elinor Wylie, Velvet Shoes will be released in November before a live premiere on 18th / 19th December 2026. More information.
Curoo Curoo to be performed in Colorado
Colorado Children’s Choral and Vickey Bailey
Statues chosen for Californian recording project!
Californian-based violinist Iryna Krechkovsky and pianist Louise Thomas present a vibrant collection of violin and piano works by remarkable women composers from Ukraine, Ireland, the United States, and Canada, including Elaine Agnew's Statues. This recording project shines a spotlight on music that has too often remained unheard, celebrating the creativity and lasting artistic legacy of these significant composers.
Upcoming Events
Velvet Shoes
18/19th December 2026 Mission Santa Clara de Asís, Santa Clara, California
Commissioned by the Californian girls choir iSing Silicon Valley and Artistic Director Jennah Delp Somers, Velvet Shoes will be premiered with a chamber ensemble accompaniment. A setting of a poem by Elinor Wylie. More information.
Curoo Curoo / Child Within
22nd December 2026 National Concert Hall, Dublin
Performed by Cór na nÓg and Cór Linn with National Symphony Orchestra Ireland in a celebration of Christmas music!
Curoo Curoo
December 2026 Colorado
Colorado
What the Future Holds
12th February 2027 National Concert Hall, Dublin
Commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland and youth choir Cór Linn with a commissioned text by Jessica Traynor, under the direction of Finnish conductor Anna-Maria Helsing. More information.
New Work
Evlana Sinfonietta, directed by Keith Pascoe, presents the world premiere of Elaine Agnew’s new string sinfonietta alongside a programme that places Irish voices in dialogue with two Pulitzer Prize-winning composers. The concert also features works by Irish composers Siobhán Cleary and Raymond Deane. This premiere performance also includes a pre-concert performance of a new piece composed collaboratively with children from St. Peter’s National School, Phibsborough as part of Evlana’s commitment to widening access to contemporary music. More information.
Recent Events
The Moon
17 September 2026 St Mary’s Cathedral Limerick ‘Nature of Sound"
Concert presented in partnership with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Contemporary Music Centre and The Hunt Museum with a pre-concert discussion with composers Sam Perkin and Elaine Agnew. The event is part of a year-long celebration of CMC’s 40th anniversary.
The Magdalene Songs
4 July 2026 Bantry House, West Cork Chamber Music Festival ‘I crafted you amid sorrows"‘
The Magdalene Songs is an ongoing project initiated by Irish/American pianist Deirdre Brenner to honour the women so gravely mistreated by church and state in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries by giving voice to their experience. These songs strive to amplify in their own words the experience of the women and girls who were sent to the Laundries and to encourage further dialogue about responses to historic human rights abuses in Ireland and elsewhere. Featuring mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean.
The Offing
6 June 2026 Hill of the O’Neill, Dungannon “Starstruck”
The Belfast Philharmonic Choir & Fermanagh Choral Society joined forces for a celebration of iconic film music and the evocative new choral work The Offing, featuring beloved film themes and powerful narratives. Conducted by James Grossmith with pianist Gail Evans.
Text by Sinéad Morrisey.
A Conference of Birds
15/ 16 May 2026 Dlr Mill Theatre, Dundrum
“Birds on the brink of extinction take to the stage hoping the humans will look up and cherish their song before it’s too late.”
An intergenerational performance of theatre, music and visual art by participatory arts group The Elders in collaboration with a flock of muti-disciplinary artists and National Concert Hall’s Cór na Nóg. A gathering of wings, voices and stories rooted in the lives of birds from Ireland’s Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern, the work invites us to step briefly into another way of being, of moving, calling, and listening. Myth, music, theatre, movement, animation, visual art and live performance are woven together to give voice to birds and their fragile futures.
The Swallow
18 April RDS Concert Hall Dublin and 9 May 2026 Fisherwick Church, Belfast “JUBILATE!”
A celebration of 10 years of the unique Dublin Youth Choirs and 20 years of the Belfast Philharmonic Youth Choirs programmes. These spectacular concerts sees the combined forces of hundreds of young voices with the Irish Choral Sinfonia/Ulster Orchestra for two thrilling orchestral performances and premiering a new arrangement for choir and orchestra of The Swallow.
The Swallow / A Conference of Birds
19 April 2026 New Music Dublin, National Concert Hall, Dublin
Love The Earth aims to awaken, and reawaken, a much-needed awareness among us all of the sacredness of the living Earth in today’s world. Divided into 5 sections - Mother Earth, Animals of the Earth, Birds of the Earth, Sounds of the Earth and A Place We Once Called Earth - the programme featured Cór na nÓg and The Elders. The title of this programme was inspired by an intergenerational project undertaken by Cór na nÓg in 2025 with Floating World and The Elders, titled A Conference of Birds, which highlighted red-listed bird species in Ireland and for which Elaine was commissioned to write a song of the same name. Mary Amond O’Brien, music director and Carole O’Connor, piano.
Songs of Travel
9 - 19 October 2025 IMAX London Film Festival
Featuring Elaine’s curated soundtrack, Songs of Travel was selected as one of only six Games showcased in the Games Lounge at London Film Festival Expanded, a playful, free and accessible showcase of moving, imaginative and wildly inventive games from around the world. An Animated Graphic Novel (available for free on iOS and Android), Songs of Travel explores and collectively paints a vivid picture of the topic of migration through the personal stories of five individuals as they fled their troubled homelands in search of new beginnings in Europe.
