Deirdre Gribbin facts for kids

Deirdre Gribbin, born on May 14, 1967, is a talented composer from Northern Ireland. She creates amazing music, often for orchestras, films, and radio shows.

About Deirdre Gribbin's Music Journey

Deirdre Gribbin was born in Belfast. She started her music journey at Queen's University Belfast. There, at just 20 years old, she began to compose her own music. She continued her studies in London at the Guildhall School of Music. She also studied in Denmark with a famous composer named Per Nørgård.

First Big Successes

Deirdre's first big success came with her piano piece called Per Speculum in Aenigmate. This piece won the Composition Prize at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. This was a great start to her professional career!

Famous Musical Works

Deirdre has written many important musical pieces.

• Jack B. is a piano quartet inspired by the Irish painter Jack B. Yeats.
• How to Make the Water Sound is a piano trio.
• She also wrote an opera called Hey Persephone!. An opera is like a play where most of the words are sung.
• Her violin concerto, Venus Blazing, was directed by Lou Stein. A concerto is a piece of music for a solo instrument and an orchestra.
• The Binding of The Years is for piano and orchestra.
• Celestial Pied Piper was part of a special series for the new millennium.

Music Inspired by Her Homeland

Deirdre lived in New York for a while as a Fulbright Fellow. Many of her works are inspired by the history and feelings of her home, Northern Ireland.

• Tribe is a piece for a group of musicians.
• Unity of Being is an orchestral work. The Ulster Orchestra performed it in New York after the events of 9/11.
• Her large percussion concerto, Goliath, was first performed in 2006. This was at the Belfast Festival.

Music for Film and Radio

Deirdre has also written a lot of music for radio shows.

• She composed music for The Possessed, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch.
• She also wrote music for Embers, starring Patrick Stewart.
• For Sky Picture's film My Kingdom, starring Richard Harris, she wrote the music.
• Her string quartet, Hearing your genes Evolve, was used in the film The Dark Gene. This piece was based on DNA!

Awards and Recognition

Deirdre Gribbin has won several important awards for her music.

• In 2003, she won an award at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers. This was for her orchestral work Empire States.
• She also received an Arts Foundation Award for her first opera, Hey Persephone!.
• From 2003 to 2005, she was the Artistic Director of the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM) in London.
• A newspaper critic, Richard Morrison, wrote in 2004 that Deirdre was "one of the most original thinkers in years."
• In 2019, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland gave her a Major Individual Award.
• In 2020, Deirdre won a PRS Composers' Award.

Teaching Music

Today, Deirdre Gribbin teaches composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. This school is in Greenwich, London. She helps new composers learn how to create their own music.