MICHAEL GALLEN
Michael Gallen is an Irish composer, writer and performer. He has collaborated with several leading Irish and international ensembles including Crash Ensemble, Contempo Quartet, Chamber Choir Ireland and Miroirs Étendus. Works of note include Wilde Stories, a suite for the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Cór na nÓg responding to Oscar Wilde's fairy tales; What You Forget, a large-scale choral work commissioned for the Ireland 2016 project and Session, a co-creation with dance artists Colin Dunne and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui which toured across the main stages of Europe in 2019/20, including an Irish premiere at the Abbey Theatre.
A new large-scale operatic work by Michael Gallen entitled Elsewhere, based on the story of the 1919 Monaghan Asylum Soviet, is currently nominated for the 2021 Fedora Prize for Opera. The project is being produced by contemporary Irish opera company Straymaker, of which Michael is Artistic Director, with the support of Arts Council Ireland, Creative Monaghan, Opéra de Rouen Normandie, the Centre Culturel Irlandais and the Abbey Theatre. Elsewhere will premiere at the Abbey in 2021 before touring in France, Belgium and the Netherlands in the 2022/23 season. Michael also recently created and directed At a Loss, an opera-film starring soprano Orla Boylan, for Irish National Opera’s “20 Shots of Opera” project.
Michael has been a recipient of an Arts Council Next Generation Award in 2019, Opera Bursary Awards in 2018/2020 and the Dublin City Music Bursary in 2017, as well as numerous national and international residency opportunities and several Arts Council Project Awards with Straymaker. He was a National Trailblazer for Culture Night 2020 and is one of the Irish artists selected to participate in the flagship Platform 31 bursary scheme. He will be the Artist-in-Residence at La Brèche Festival in 2022, creating a new multi-platform work for the festival.
Michael is the lead vocalist and songwriter with Irish band Ana Gog and also performs as a solo pianist/electronic music artist under the moniker Sudden Wells, with a new album due for release in Autumn 2021. His work as a documentary maker includes “Vocal Chords”, a series presented by singer Iarla Ó’Lionard, a Gold Medal winner at the New York Radio Awards in 2016.
