Greg Caffrey

Greg Caffrey 1963 - The Irish composer Greg Caffrey read music at Queen’s University Belfast where he studied composition under Piers Hellawell and James Clarke. He was awarded a B.Mus. in 1995 and completed a PhD in 2002. He has won a number of awards and scholarships that include the Hamilton Harty Scholarship, May Turtle Award, an award from the Harrison Foundation and he was a finalist in the ISME-IVME 2nd International Composition Contest in Brussels.As a performer he has worked in many of the countries leading ensembles, including the Irish Jazz Orchestra, as well as working in theatre orchestras and in groups giving TV and radio broadcasts.His compositions have been performed in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Czech Republic, Estonia, U.S. and Brazil receiving critical acclaim and increasingly reflecting an eclecticism informed by his broad musical background and enthusiastic teaching activities. The formation of his own ensemble, “Greg Caffrey Circle”, in 2000, allowed him to release an album of his own compositions entitled “Child’s Play”. His music has been recorded on the Meridian, Naturalstudio, Cactus and CMC record labels.Greg has received commissions from many performers and ensembles as well as from BBC Radio 3 and the Irish national broadcasting station RTE and has had music performed by The Ulster Orchestra, Ensemble Bash, Craig Ogden, Gerard McChrystal, The Smith Quartet, Elizabeth Cooney, Izumi Kimura, Brian Keenan, Patrick Zeoli, Trio Collage, Aisling Agnew and Matthew McAlister and the Ireland Quartet, to name a few. His most recent works include a commission from The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry for a string quartet setting poems by eminent Scottish and Irish poets and from the British contemporary music group SCAW.Greg lecturers in Music and Music Technology at SERC and recently spent a period composing at the prestigious Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris where he resided for 3 months. He has been appointed composer in residence with the London based orchestra EMFEB and is a registered artist with Creative Youth Partnerships. Greg is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin and is a member of the Association of Irish Composers.Profile Edited by: NewMySpaceLayouts.com