News and Reviews
Upcoming
Hysterically Shopping to receive full performance at Project Arts Centre, 18th and 19th December.
Ryuichi Sakamoto arrangements to be performed at major show in the National Concert Hall January 18th, 2025.
Development of new opera/musical ‘RUJA’ scheduled for development in 2026.
2024
Hysterically Shopping to be performed at Dublin Theatre Festival October, 5th October.
September: Glasshouse perform major show at Guinness Storehouse
for Culture Night featuring arrangements by Aran and Robert Reid Allan.
August: Sakamoto performed at All Together Now festival.
June: Melatonin in Bb performed by Lynn Henderson Horn Trio in Wales.
2023
New arrangements of music by Ryuichi Sakamoto for December concert
Review of Gods of the Game on Broadway World
Commission by Sky Arts and Grange Park Opera as part of a 5 person composing team
2021
Eintänzer reviewed by Robert Hugill on planethugill.com
Chamber Opera Eintänzer to receive premier live performance in Guildhall School
Aran O' Grady one of six winners of the NMD Sonic Adventures for Brass competition
New work composition and arrangements to be performed by Glasshouse
at Music Town 2021
2020
Aran O' Grady awarded 2019/20 Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Composition
Interviews
Three Things podcast w/ George Hooker
With University Times on David Bowie Arrangements
reviews
“ O'Grady has a talent both for writing tunes and for re-creating the shape of 1930s dance numbers, but he also was able to take this sound world and create something edgier and more disturbing so that the opera felt all of a piece, the dance numbers did not stand out, yet the whole was never pastiche.” Robert Hugill planethugill.com
“Although entertaining in its nature by requiring Adams to play both the piano and harpsichord at once, the piece in itself is entrancing. Modal melodies overlap, creating some very interesting harmonies. The piece is tastefully portrayed by Adams, who allows the compositional style to speak for itself.”
Alice Goodwin GoldenPlec
“I’d to congratulate Aran O’ Grady on the wonderful job of arranging the songs performed” - Glasshouse - Sufjan Stevens 2018 Robyn Kilroy Tn2 magazine
“Harmonically and texturally this was a fascinating piece. The music was preoccupied with regular rhythms which gave it a propulsive and somewhat hypnotic effect. Harmonically, it was reminiscent of the non-functional triadic sonorities of Gyorgy Ligeti’s Horn Trio. The combined effect of harmony and rhythm was at once attractive and unsettling- in this regard the composer’s engagement and evocation of the programme was very successful. The coda was a striking passage which made brilliant use of the deep rumbly timbre that five brass instruments in unison can offer."“ - Brass Quintet Concert - 2017 Luke Smyth Tn2 magazine
“TCD Orchestra’s performance was so artfully arranged and beautifully executed that songs such as Dance Yrself Clean, North American Scum and All My Friends sounded completely natural being performed on violins and cellos” - LCD Soundsystem Arrangements 2015 - Goldenplec.com