COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE

brian byrne

Brian Byrne

Golden Globe nominated composer Brian Byrne moved to Los Angeles from Ireland in July 2003 to expand his career as a film and television composer. Since then, Brian has consistently worked as a composer, conductor, songwriter, arranger and pianist – in the US and in Europe. Brian recently won two World Soundtrack Awards and a Satellite Award for his music to the song and score for the movie Albert Nobbs and has just been nominated for his third World Soundtrack Award 2016.

From huge orchestral scores to minimal ensemble compositions, Brian has written music for films in many genres. He won his first Irish Film and Television Award for his original score for the Irish Sci-Fi comedy Zonad, directed by John Carney. He then scored an indie drama called The Good Doctor, starring Orlando Bloom and went on to compose the score to the Oscar nominated movie Albert Nobbs starring Glenn Close. Brian just completed the score to Jim Sheridan's new movie The Secret Scripture, starring Rooney Mara and wrote and produced the end title song for Kelly Clarkson.

As well as an in demand Film composer, Brian is a much sought after arranger. He recently worked on Sarah McLachlan's new album.
In 2014 Brian  completed composing the music to Heartbeat of Home a new show from the producers of Riverdance. featuring Paddy Moloney, Carlos Nunez, The RTE Concert Orchestra, Jessica Sanchez and guests. It toured North America and China.

In Spring of 2014 Brian composed the score to The Price of Desire a biopic about Eileen Gray the famous Irish designer and also Jenny's Wedding starring Tom Wilkinson and Katherine Heigl. Brian has just completed the score to Boychoir starring Dustin Hoffman and features a song co-written with Josh Groban.

Brian has collaborated with such international luminaries as Katy Perry, Bono, Barbra Streisand, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Josh Groban, Kurt Elling, Lisa Stansfield, Van Morrison, Alanis Morissette,The Corrs, Sinead O’Connor, Alan Bergman, Ronan Tynan, Luis Miguel, Vince Gill, Gladys Knight, to name a few. He arranged a song for the movie Sex and the City 2 and played piano on Liza Minnelli’s cover of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it).”

Brian’s American conducting debut came in 2004 at Carnegie Hall. He was commissioned to write all the arrangements and conduct the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the release of Ronan Tynan’s first solo album for Decca. Brian also released a Classical album called Tales From the Walled City on the Decca label and is working on a large scale project based on poems by James Joyce.

Brian was educated at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He graduated in 1997 with first-class honors in music and was awarded The Peter Knox Memorial Award for overall performance. Later that year he received the Outstanding Musicianship Award from Berklee College’s touring faculty in Scotland as well as winning the PRS Sir Arthur Bliss Prize Scholarship for composition that enabled him to study film composition at London’s Royal College of Music. In 2008, Brian added ASCAP’s Film and Television Scoring Workshop’s Steve Kaplan Scholarship to his already long list of accomplishments and awards.