David Flynn

David Flynn (also known as Dave Flynn, born 6 January 1977) is an Irish composer, musician, and the founder and artistic director of the Irish Memory Orchestra.

Many of his works music merge the influence of traditional Irish music with contemporary classical music and jazz.

He is also a multi-instrumentalist who works across many genres including classical, jazz, rock and traditional Irish music, with guitar being his main instrument.

Flynn was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland.

His early musical experiences included brief periods studying piano and tin whistle, but it was not until his early teens that Flynn really took to music, teaching himself how to play rock guitar.

He developed an interest in classical guitar in his mid-teens and taught himself how to read music notation, he also learnt classical guitar by ear from recordings.

He composed his first piece for classical guitar aged 16.

Upon leaving school in 1995 he studied rock music at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, Dublin.

Around this time Flynn started composing songs and performed on the Dublin singer-songwriter scene, including at Dave Murphy's "famous Tuesday night gigs" that helped then up-and-coming musicians like Glen Hansard, Damien Dempsey and Declan O'Rourke.

He later developed a strong interest in traditional Irish music which he learnt through recordings and workshops at various Irish music festivals.

In 1998 Flynn began formal classical music studies at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, initially studying classical guitar on a part-time basis with John Feeley.

In 1999 he enrolled in the full-time music degree course at the Conservatory, continuing his guitar studies with Feeley while majoring in composition.

Flynn's professional composition career began in the early 2000s with performances of his music by artists including Jane O'Leary's Concorde ensemble, Rolf Hind and the Dublin Guitar Quartet.

He also premiered many of his own guitar works at this time.

His works from this period are often influenced by the minimalist music of John Adams, Philip Glass and Steve Reich and they have been published by Mel Bay.

Now fully committed to composing, Flynn won the IMRO Composition Award in 2002 at the Feis Ceoil in Dublin for his string orchestra piece Mesh.

While at DIT he co-founded the Dublin Guitar Quartet with fellow students.

He graduated in 2003 at which time he left the Dublin Guitar Quartet to move to London where he became the first person from the Republic of Ireland to be accepted onto the master's degree in Composition course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

At Guildhall he studied composition with Malcolm Singer and electro-acoustic music with Nye Parry and he formed his own ensemble, the David Flynn Collective.

He graduated with a master's degree in composition from the Guildhall in 2004.

Soon after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2004, Flynn's string quartet piece Slip was selected for the Young Composers Workshop at the 2004 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, which led to Flynn being awarded the 2004 Young Composers Award at the Festival.

Earlier in 2004 Flynn had instigated the foundation of the Young Composers Collective (YCC) in Ireland.

Flynn announced the YCC with an article in the Journal of Music in Ireland (JMI) in which he criticised established bodies for failing to support young composers.

The article caused some debate but ultimately led to the YCC providing a platform for a large number of previously unknown young composers to have their music performed.

The YCC has since evolved into the Irish Composers' Collective.

Flynn is no longer a member according to the ICC website.

His prize was a commission to elaborate Slip into his String Quartet No. 2 "The Cranning" for the 2005 festival where it was premiered by the Smith Quartet to the acclaim of critics including Neil Fisher of The Times who praised Flynn for "incorporating traditional Irish music without Hollywood pastiche".

Music critic Michael Dervan of The Irish Times wrote: "Flynn is attempting to bring the influence of traditional Irish music into the hallowed realms of the classical string quartet and moments in the Smith Quartet's performance of this minimalist influenced work gelled to perfection."

Flynn caused further debate in the JMI in 2005 when his article "Looking for the Irish Bartók" questioned the failure of established Irish classical composers to engage with traditional Irish music and musicians.

Despite some harsh criticism of Flynn's ideas from some of the established Irish composers, his article resonated with traditional Irish musicians who had in the past largely been ignored or denigrated by the Irish classical music establishment.

This article directly led to Flynn's contact with the renowned traditional Irish fiddler Martin Hayes and his musical partner, guitarist Dennis Cahill.

He returned to DIT in 2006 where he undertook a research PhD entitled Traditional Irish Music: A Path to New Music.

In 2006, the Masters of Tradition Festival in Cork commissioned Flynn to compose a piece for Hayes and Cahill to perform with the classical violinist Ioana Petcu-Colan.

The resulting piece Music for the Departed was premiered at the Masters of Tradition Festival in August 2006.

He completed it in 2010.

At its US Premiere in 2010 at the Irish American Arts Center in New York, it was described as "A magnificent new work for fiddle, violin and guitar" by the Irish Examiner (USA).

Flynn later worked with Martin Hayes on a number of other projects.

In 2010, Hayes premiered Aontacht, a concerto for Irish fiddle and orchestra with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in Ireland's National Concert Hall.

The concert also featured a new arrangement of Music for the Departed with a string orchestra added to the fiddle, violin and guitar trio of the original.

Aontacht was reviewed in the Journal of Music, with editor Toner Quinn writing that "The precision of Flynn's writing displayed years of studying the music of Hayes: his style, rhythm, technical ability and aesthetic. At the same time, the composer moved the fiddle-player into unfamiliar territory, compelling him to climb through shifting, plated orchestral accompaniment. Each time Hayes arrived at a plateau, Flynn had spun the map, but Hayes was undeterred, ascending and chasing even harder. It was thrilling, heady and explosive. Brophy danced on the podium. I moved to the edge of my seat."