Short Bio
I am an experimental composer and performer from Ireland. I write music for acoustic instruments, electronic instruments, environmental sounds, and people doing things in performance not involving any instruments at all. For the most part my practice is involved with the act of translating non-musical things into music and using projected text in performance. I do this as a way to draw attention to things both big and small from our lived experiences. I mostly work with conventional notation and text notation but occasionally use musical graphics. Over the years I have become particularly interested in collaborations and music as a devised process as well as walking as an artistic pursuit. My music is often long, repetitive, and contains sustained tones but it can also be short and fragmented. My work has been performed by lots of nice people as far west as Albuquerque, New Mexico, and as far east as Beijing, China. I also have a performance duo with Andy Ingamells that explores collaborative processes through a kind of visual musique concrète arising from the images of performance situations. I am an Ad Astra Fellow Assistant Professor in Music at UCD in Ireland and was previously a senior lecturer in music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for 13 years.
Full Bio
Seán Clancy is an experimental musician from Dublin. His music has been described as ‘Equal part sacred & seductive’ (Tempo); ’An affecting reminder of minimalism’s capacity to feel deeply personal and purposeful’ (The Quietus); and ‘Beautifully simple yet elusive’ (The New York Times). His work deals with translation, examining minimal compositional strategies over extended periods of time, and devised collaboration.
Recent work includes Where the Paths End (2023), a 28 minute piece for ensemble, electronics, and location recordings commission by Zubin Kanga’s UKRI Cyborg Soloists project for Plus Minus Ensemble, with three accompanying soundwalks around Edinburgh, Birmingham, and London; Amaechi (with Michael Wolters), a 2022 Commonwealth Games commission for singers, percussionists, electronics, basketball players, and projected text; Nowhere Better Than This Place (with Andy Ingamells) (2023/2019) for visual musique concrète, electronics, projected text, and video (reprised at Dublin Fringe Festival 2023 and nominated for The George Fitzmaurice Award); and Inventions & Canons, an immensely intimate album for acoustic instruments, electronics, and location recordings documenting life surrounding the year 2021.
Over the years, Seán has received an Arts Council Project Award (2025), a PRSF Beyond Boarders Award (with Andy Ingamells) (2019), a Culture Ireland GB18 Award (2018), been composer in association with Workers Union Ensemble (2015/16), an artist in residence at the Moog Soundlab (2015 and 2018), composer in residence at EMS Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm (2014), BCMG/SAM Composer in Residence (2010-2012), and a recipient of an RTÉ Lyric FM/IMRO Composition Bursary (2012). Additionally, he has been a featured composer for the bicentenary of the Royal Academy of Music, London (2022), Listenpony concert series (2022), the Kirkos Biosphere festival (2020) the BBC Radio 3 Open Ear Series (2018), the New Music Dublin Festival (2017), Composing the Island Festival, Dublin (2016) MATA Festival, New York (2016), Beijing Modern Music Festival (2016), RTÉ NSO Music of Our Time Series (2016), New Dots Series, London (2016), Culture Night, Ireland (2019 & 2015) David Lang’s ‘What?… Wow Festival of Music’ (2015), Soundings at the Austrian Cultural Forum (2015), the RTÉ NSO Horizons Series (2014), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2013), Quatuor Bozzini Composers’ Kitchen (2013), Ergodos Printing House Festival (2007), Birmingham’s Frontiers Festival (2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2011, 2010), and CODA Festival (2018, 2019, 2020) also in Birmingham.
Seán has been commissioned and performed by many fabulous ensembles and artists from around the world. He has enjoyed working with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Quatuor Bozzini, Crash Ensemble, Plus Minus Ensemble, RTÉ Contempo Quartet, Fidelio Trio, Ensemble KROCK, Workers Union Ensemble, Orkest de Ereprijs, Ensemble neoN, Dublin Guitar Quartet, Octandre, Decibel, Noszferatu, and Thallein Ensemble. He has also worked with soloists Xenia Pestova-Bennett, Susan Narucki, Garth Knox, R. Andrew Lee, Matthew Schellhorn, Kate Ledger, David Adams, Judith Gordon, Katalin Koltai, Paul Norman, James Larter, and Howard Skempton as well as conductors Alan Pierson, Richard Baker, Gavin Moloney, Clement Power, Ben Oliver, Daniele Rosina, Ciaran Crilly, and Dan Watson. Most recently, he has undertaken several duo projects with composer/performer Andy Ingamells, and he has also collaborated with Rock/Electronic musicians Katie Kim, Thomas Parkes, and Simon Goff. He has twice supported Matana Roberts in the UK and Ireland. He has received support from organisations such as the PRSF, the Britten Pears-Foundation, RVW Trust, Sound & Music, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, The Arts Council of Ireland, IMRO, and Culture Ireland. He has been broadcast on amongst others: WNYC (USA), WFMT Chicago (USA), RTÉ Lyric FM (Ireland), BBC Radio 3 (UK), Dublin Digital Radio (Ireland), KXRY Portland (USA) and Klassika Raadio (Estonia). He has commercial recordings released by Birmingham Record Company/NMC, Katie Kim, Crash Records, Countersunk, Tusk, and his own label: Short Loan Collection.
Seán is an Ad Astra Fellow Assistant Professor at University College Dublin. He completed a PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2012 and was a Senior Lecturer there until 2023. He holds degrees from King’s College London, University College Dublin, and the Conservatoire de Musique et de Danse à Rayonnement Départemental Aulnay-Sous-Bois. Principle teachers have included Joe Cutler, Philippe Leroux, and Howard Skempton (alongside informal studies with Gerald Barry and David Lang). He is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland.
More information, scores, and recordings available from The CMC.
SEÁN CLANCY 