Ed Bennett was born in Co. Down and is a composer working in the fields of notated, electronic and improvised contemporary music.

He has been commissioned and performed internationally by many diverse artists, ensembles and organisations, including the BBC, RTÉ, PRSF, Music Network, Moving On Music and the Arts Councils of England, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Performers of his work include the BBC Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, the National Orchestra of Belgium, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Ulster Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta and Sound Intermedia, Ensemble SurPlus, Crash Ensemble, Orkest de ereprijs, Berlin Percussion Ensemble, Lontano, Concorde, the Smith Quartet, Echo Ensemble Berlin, Reinbert de Leeuw, James MacMillan, Ulrich Mertin, Darragh Morgan, Damien Harron, Roman Mints, Paul Roe and Sarah Nicolls. He also performs with and directs his own ensemble, ‘decibel’, which is dedicated to the performance of new and experimental cross-discipline work.

Recent performances and commissions include Excavation for viola and ensemble for Garth Knox, Clockwork Monkey Machine for the Portuguese percussionist Pedro Carneiro, all of this used to be trees for orchestra and electronics for the Ulster Orchestra and a new work for the Fidelio Trio entitled for Marcel Dzama. He was a finalist in the 2005 British Composer Awards and in early 2007 he was a featured composer in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland’s Horizons series. His work Ausland for orchestra was awarded the first prize in the Tactus Composers Forum in Brussels in 2006. His music has been widely broadcast on radio and released on the Lorlelt, Enzyme and NMC labels.

His teachers have included Michael Finnissy, Brian Irvine and Jo Kondo. He has also participated in international courses in Holland (Louis Andriessen) and Germany (Chaya Czernowin) and is currently based at Birmingham Conservatoire where he is active as a teacher in the composition department.

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