JOHN BUCKLEY  

Born in Templeglantine, Co. Limerick, in 1951, John Buckley studied the flute with Doris Keogh and composition with James Wilson at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. His subsequent composition studies were in Cardiff with the Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott. Following a number of years as a teacher he became a full-time composer in 1982 and has since written a diverse range of work, from music for solo instruments to compositions for full orchestra. He has fulfilled numerous commissions including Organ Concerto for the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Rivers of Paradise for the official opening of the University of Limerick Concert Hall, the chamber opera The Words upon the Window Pane for Opera Theatre Company and Maynooth Te Deum (for the bicentenary of Maynooth College), which was first performed in the National Concert Hall in November 1995.

John Buckley’s music has been performed and broadcast in more than forty countries worldwide. His compositions have represented Ireland on five occasions at the International Rostrum of Composers and at three ISCM festivals. His score A Thin Halo of Blue was Radio Telefís Éireann’s entry for the 1990 Prix Italia. Numerous broadcasts throughout the world have resulted from this. He has won all the major Irish composition awards including the Varming Prize (1977), the Macaulay Fellowship (1978), the Arts Council’s Composers’ Bursary (1982) and the Toonder Award (1991). In 1984 he was elected a member of Aosdana, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists.