Ian Wilson

Ian Wilson (Northern Ireland, 1964) has composed over 250 works including operas, a range of orchestral and chamber music, and multimedia pieces.

His compositions have been performed and broadcast on six continents and presented at festivals including the BBC Proms, Venice Biennale, Warsaw Autumn and Gaudeamus, and at venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.  There are over 40 commercial recordings of his music available.

Ian was awarded the first PhD in composition from the University of Ulster in 1990. In 1998 he was elected to Aosdána, Ireland’s national association of creative artists, and he has been AHRB Research Fellow at the University of Ulster and “An Foras Feasa” post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Dundalk Institute of Technology as well as composer-in-association with California’s Camerata Pacifica ensemble, the Ulster Orchestra, and the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. He was director of the Sligo New Music Festival from 2003 to 2011.

Ian is also a pianist, conductor, and curator. As a pianist, Ian has given the world premiere performances of pieces written specially for him by composers such as Colin Riley, Stephen Gardner, Deirdre McKay and David Morris; also the territorial premieres of works by Morton Feldman, Luciano Berio, Arvo Pärt, Michael Finnissy, Judith Weir, Milan Mihajlović and Howard Skempton.

Ian has conducted many choirs, ensembles and orchestras including Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ulster Orchestra, Ficino Ensemble, Chamber Choir Ireland, and Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra.

As well as the Sligo New Music Festival, Ian has curated programmes for the National Concert Hall, Dublin (“Scoring History”, 2014 and “After Beethoven”, 2022), was the concert advisor for the Con Brio classical concert series in Sligo (2001-2011), and has created programmes for individual musicians such as German cellist Matthias Lorenz (his “Science” programme, 2021).

Photo © Andrej Grilc

http://www.ianwilson.ie/

https://ianwilson2.bandcamp.com/

https://soundcloud.com/wilsonkul