Music
Ed Bennett
Ed Bennett’s music has been performed and broadcast in over 30 countries in venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Barbican and South Bank Centres and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Recent highlights include ‘Psychedelia’ for the RTÉ NSO and Thomas Adès, ‘Ausland’ for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Reinbert de Leeuw, ‘Belonging’ for the Orchestra of the 21st Century, ‘Song of the Books’ for the Crash Ensemble and five critically-acclaimed portrait discs of his work.
He performs with his 10-piece ensemble Decibel, described in The Quietus as ‘blending the coiled concentration of the best post-minimalism with the ferocity and dynamic range of thrash metal’ and plays live electronics both solo and in a duo with pianist Xenia Pestova. He frequently collaborates with artists in other disciplines including choreographers Anne Van Den Broek and Fiona Quilligan, writers Stacey Gregg and Cherry Smyth and film maker Laura Sheeran. In 2019 Ed Bennett was awarded the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Major Individual Artist Award, the highest honour awarded to an artist from the region, his work has been twice shortlisted for the Ivor Novello awards.
His recent portrait CD ‘Psychedelia’ (2020) was described in the Sunday Times as ‘ebullient, deeply compelling music’ and featured in the New York Times as one of their recommended releases of 2020. He has been awarded residencies and fellowships at Civitella Ranieri, Umbria (2014), Centre Culturel Irlandais (2008), Paris and Villa Concordia, Bamberg (2024). He is Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London where he directs the postgraduate programme in Composition. In 2024 he was elected to Aosdána the affiliation of creative artists in Ireland honouring artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the creative arts in Ireland.
(Photo Credit: Christian Jungeblodt)