Elaine Agnew
Photographer Carrie Davenport
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Irish composer Elaine Agnew received her musical education at Queen’s University Belfast and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, studying with composers Kevin Volans and James MacMillan. Her music has been described as “compelling from beginning to end” (Edward Whitney, Bachtrack 2012 BBC Proms) with “a talent for melodic invention, a neat handling of fold idioms and an inclination towards wit.” (Glasgow Herald)
Her substantial body of work covers all genres from opera, video games/animated graphic novels, radio dramas and contemporary dance to orchestras, choirs and ensembles. Her music has been widely commissioned and broadcast on radio and TV, reaching audiences across the world from the BBC Proms and gamers to outreach workshop participants.
Orchestras including Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Cuba, Magogo Kamerosrkest, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the Irish and Scottish Chamber Orchestras have all championed her work under eminent conductors Jane Glover, Kenneth Montgomery, Takua Yuasa, JoAnn Falletta, Jac Van Steen, Jaime Martín and Andrew Litton. Commissioned ensemble works include those from the Škampa, ConTempo and Vogler Quartets, Concorde, Lontano, Ensemble Antipodes, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble and Brass Band Oberösterreich.
Elaine has composed an impressive list of choral works for the Boston Children’s Chorus, Belfast Philharmonic Society, Chamber Choir Ireland, Kaunas Chamber Choir, Dublin Youth Choir, New Dublin Voices, Cappella Caeciliana, Ghostlight Chorus NY, Choral Scholars of UCD and Cór na nÓg, working closely with directors Lynsey Callaghan, Mary Amond O’Brien, David Hill, James Grossmith, Greg Beardsell and Desmond Earley. Soloists who have championed her work include cellists Robert Cohen and Evžen Rattay, pianists Iain Burnside, Simon Lepper, Finghin Collins and Angela Hewitt, violinists Catherine Leonard, Isabelle Faust and Katherine Hunka, singers Jane Manning, Catherine Robbin and Ben McAteer and Irish artists Cliona Doris, Ken Edge, Paul Roe, Alex Petcu and Máirtin O’Connor.
Her music has featured at the BBC Proms, London BMIC Cutting Edge Series, Spitalfields and Slovenian Unicum Festivals, New Music Dublin, RTÉ Composing the Island and Horizons Series, Expo 2000 Hanover, Is Arti Festival Lithuania, Barossa Music Festival Australia, Tilberg Festival, Charles Wood Summer Festival, FairPlay Chamber Music Sweden, Valdres Sommersymfoni Norway and Piano Biënnale The Netherlands as well as being featured as Berlin’s Classical:NEXT. Prestigious venues include New York’s Carnegie Hall and Czech Centre, London’s South Bank Centre, Wigmore and Royal Albert Halls, Brussel’s Theatre Flagey, the Konzerthaus Berlin, JF Kennedy Centre Washington and Centre Cultural Irlandais, Paris.
Collaborations have included projects with playwrights Veronica Coburn on an RTÉ radio drama Love is a Simple Thing and Deirdre Kinahan on Maisy Daly’s Rainbow, a children’s theatre and modern dance piece as well as choreographer Jennifer Rooney/Maiden Voyage Dance on Turnabout. With Vienna-based Game Developers Causa Creations, Elaine created the soundtrack for Songs of Travel (Android and iOS) as well as collaborations with poets Michael Longley, Sinéad Morrissey and Jessica Traynor, who created the libretto for Elaine’s opera Paper Boat, commissioned by Music for Galway and conducted by Sinead Hayes.
Her works currently feature on 18 discs by labels Signum, Metiér, Lorelt, Doyen, Hibernian Music, Diatribe, Black Box, RTÉ lyric fm as well as broadcasts on BBC 4, Radio 3, New York's WNYC and WCNY and throughout the EBU. Her choral music is published by Boosey & Hawkes, Cailíno Music Publishers and Seolta Music.
Upcoming premieres include The Offing by the Belfast Philharmonic Society, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and pianist Deirdre Brenner at the Oxford International Song Festival as well as commissions from New Music Dublin, the National Symphony Orchestra and Californian girls choir iSing Silicon Valley.
Former Composer in Residence with RTÉ lyric fm, awards include an ACNI Major Individual Artist Award, RTÉ Composer of the Future, Banff Centre of Creative Arts and MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire Residencies as well as representing Ireland at the 2009 International Rostrum of Composers. A member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored body of creative artists, Elaine’s BBC Proms commission Dark Hedges was premiered by the Ulster Youth and Ulster Orchestras with international flautist Sir James Galway in London’s Royal Albert Hall and described by one London reviewer as ‘compelling from beginning to end’.