siobhan cleary - Biography  
 


Siobhán Cleary was born in Dublin in 1970. Her concert music has been performed and broadcast widely in Europe, Australia and USA and much of her music has being released on CD.
Her orchestral work, “Threads”, was selected by Vienna Modern Masters for performance at the Second International Festival of New Music for Orchestra in Olomouc in the Czech Republic, and was later released on CD on the Vienna Modern Masters label. Her “Deuce!” for two violins was released on CD in January 2000. Alchemy (Comissioned by RTE and premiered by the National Symphomy Orchestra in 2001) will be released later this year under the American label Albany Records.
She has also written the music scores for two films, ‘Spacejacked!’ and ‘Dangerous Curves’, both of them directed by Jeremiah Cullinane and produced by Roger Corman. In 1996 She was awarded a Pépinières Young European Artists award in 1996 for a three-month residency in Bologna where she wrote many scores for restored films for the Cineteca di Bologna including the Brunuel/Dali classic 'Un Chien Andalou'
In January 1998 a concert devoted to her music was given at Cité International des Arts in Paris. In September 1998 her “Hum!”, a collaberation with the writer Gerry Beirne, commissioned by the Irish Chamber Orchestra, featured in the first orchestral concert given on a small island, Inisbofin, off the west coast of Ireland. The work, for two actors and strings, was subsequently taken on a national tour, and was described in “The Irish Times” as “a coup de théâtre”.
She has been a featured composer at many festivals and series incluing the 2004 RTE Living Music Festival, The National Concert Hall Composers Choice series and this years RTE Horizons series
Siobhán Cleary studied Music and Irish at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth and completed a composition masters at Queen’s University Belfast. She also has a Masters in music technology from Trinity College, Dublin. With support from the Irish Arts Council she attended composition courses in Siena (composition under Franco Donatoni and film composition under Ennio Morricone), at the Foundation Royaumont in France (under Brian Ferneyhough) and at Kazmierz-Dolny in Poland (under Louis Andriessen, Tom Johnson and T.S. Mani). She has also studied privately with Tom Johnson and Kevin Volans and participated in a film scoring course under the late Don Brandon Ray former music supervisor of CBS television.
In 1995 she was a finalist in the Yorkshire and Humberside Arts Young Composers’ Award at the Huddersfield Festival. She was awarded a Pépinières Young European Artists award in 1996 for a three-month residency in Bologna. And in 1997 she won first prize in the Arklow Music Festival Competition in Ireland. From 1998 - 2000 she was Artistic director of the Hugh Lane Contemporary Music series. She is the founding member and Artistic director of IPNM (Ireland Promoting New Music) which curates concerts for established performers and ensemble.
She is now living in Riverstown, Co. Sligo and is currently writing an opera