The Belfast born composer Greg Caffrey studied composition under Piers Hellawell and James Clarke before completing a PhD at Queen’s University in 2002. Awards received include the Hamilton Harty Scholarship, May Turtle award and an award from the Harrison Foundation. In 2009 he was finalist in the ISME-IVME 2nd Iternational Composition Contest in Brussels.
His compositions have been performed in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Czech Republic, Estonia, U.S. and Brazil receiving critical acclaim and increasingly reflecting an eclecticism informed by his broad musical background and enthusiastic teaching activities. The formation of his own ensemble, “Greg Caffrey Circle”, in 2000, allowed him to release an album of his own compositions entitled “Child’s Play”. His music has been recorded on the Meridian, Naturalstudio, Cactus and CMC record labels.
Greg Caffrey has received commissions from many performers and ensembles as well as from BBC Radio 3 and RTÉ. His music has been performed by the Ulster Orchestra, Ensemble Bash, Craig Ogden, Gerard McChrystal, The Smith Quartet, violinist Elizabeth Cooney, pianist Izumi Kimura, guitarist Patrick Zeoli, Trio Collage, Aisling Agnew and Matthew McAlister and the Ireland Quartet. Recent works include a commission from the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry for a string quartet setting poems by eminent Scottish and Irish poets and from the British contemporary music group SCAW.
Greg Caffrey lecturers in Music and Music Technology at the South Eastern Regional College and recently spent a period composing at the prestigious Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris where he resided for three months. He has been appointed composer-in-residence with the London based orchestra EMFEB and is a registered artist with Creative Youth Partnerships.
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Musical Chairs from Greg Caffrey Circle: This track is taken from the album Child's Play recorded in 2000 by Greg Caffrey Circle. Richard Mawhinney - clarinet, Andrew Lavery - drums, Greg Caffrey - classical guitar. All tracks on the album are composed by Greg. The greg caffrey circle has been described as veering between, "Jimmy Giuffre's late 50's collaboration with Jim Hall and some of the wildness of what clarinettist Alex Ward has effected in company with Derek Bailey". John Wickes - AVANT Magazine Spring 2001 |
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