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 (I am a Pisces after all). 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 composer 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 large scale work includes The Rite of Ten Winds with visual artist Yambe Tam, A gentle and imaginative virtual reality (VR) experience exploring the natural and human-made processes of greenhouse gas removal; 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; and Amaechi (with Michael Wolters), a 2022 Commonwealth Games commission for singers, percussionists, electronics, basketball players. Forthcoming work includes an opera with Irish author Emilie Pine.
Seán has received several grants and awards including an Arts Council Project Award (2025); a PRSF Beyond Boarders Award (with Andy Ingamells) (2019); a Culture Ireland GB18 Award (2018); and an RTÉ Lyric FM/IMRO Composition Bursary (2012). He has 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); and BCMG/SAM Composer in Residence (2010-2012). Additionally, he has been a featured composer for the bicentenary of the Royal Academy of Music, London (2022); the Kirkos Biosphere festival (2020); 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); 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); and many incarnations of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s Frontiers and Coda festivals.
Seán has been commissioned and performed by many exciting ensembles and artists from around the world. He has enjoyed repeatedly 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. In recent years, devised collaboration has become important and Seán performs regularly in a duo with composer/performer Andy Ingamells. He has also collaborated with singer/songwriter Katie Kim; novelist Emilie Pine; and visual artist Yambe Tam.
He has received support from organisations such as the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon; UKRI; Arts Council England; Heritage Fund; PRSF; Culture Ireland; Statens Musikverk; Britten Pears Arts; Vaughan Williams Foundation; Sound & Music; and IMRO. He has been broadcast on amongst others: BBC Radio 3 (UK); RTÉ Lyric FM (IRE); WNYC (USA), WFMT Chicago (USA); Dublin Digital Radio (IRE); KXRY Portland (USA) and Klassika Raadio (Estonia). He has commercial recordings released by NMC; Birmingham Record Company; 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. 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 