the quartet
the musicians
Neil Martin
Belfast-born composer Neil Martin is a cellist and an uilleann piper and was encouraged to play both traditional and classical music from an early age. Among his teachers were piper Liam O Flynn and cellist Richard Markson, the latter a pupil of Tortellier and Fournier. A Music and Celtic Studies graduate of Queen's University, Belfast, Neil has since enjoyed a most varied and rewarding career that encompasses composition, performance and production.
Major commissions include OSSA, a choral symphony to mark the 400th anniversary of The Flight of the Earls; no tongue can tell - a concerto for uilleann pipes and symphony orchestra. Other recent commissions include – Exsultet, a commission from Cappella Caeciliana set in Latin and Irish for the choir’s USA tour in April 2011; a setting of the Agnus Dei for a cappella choir, premiered in October 2010 in St Paul’s Church, Ground Zero, NYC; Lux et Lumen – 2 horn trios; Hell’s Pavement - a feature film score; 4 Quartets – a dance project based on TS Eliot’s poems; Soundings, a chamber trio for Lyric FM; Death of an Ordinary Man - an operatic collaboration with Pauline McLynn for Opera Theatre Company; Oileán na Marbh and An Indigo Sky for string quartet; theatre and television work; Current work includes both chamber music and a large scale orchestral work for RTE; he is also currently musical director for a new PBS children’s TV series for the Jim Henson company.
Composition for television, film and radio includes various short dramas, television series for children, award-winning documentaries and series for BBC, C4 and RTE and many radio dramas. Neil has composed and directed music extensively for theatre, notably Stephen Rea’s award-winning production of Northern Star (1998) and Marie Jones’ Women on the Verge of HRT (West End 1995). He wrote music for Kabosh’s This is What We Sang which won Best Production in the New York Irish Theatre Awards, November 2010.