Fraz Ireland is a composer, performer and music engraver. Often with a playful approach, Fraz’s work
explores connections between score, performers, and audience through incorporation of text, video,
drawings, or perhaps an evocative title or a story shared in rehearsal. Current and recent projects
include an organ solo commissioned by Choir and Organ, a piece for Blackheath Choir as part of the Adopt
a Music Creator Scheme; and a brass fanfare commissioned by Help Musicians that was performed in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Fraz’s musical background was in church choirs and playing clarinet and percussion in orchestras,
and they have written for and worked with a range of performers and organisations including the Tallis
Scholars, NYOGB, and the Ligeti Quartet.
My main biography
Fraz Ireland is a composer, engraver, and pecuessionist whose work often explores a provocative
and playful relationship with the audience, engaging with storytelling, and sometimes
incorporating extra-musical elements including text, video, and images. Fraz studied
composition on the ‘joint course’ at the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern
College of Music.
Fraz was on ABRSM's Composing for Education course in 2023-2024.
In 2023 Fraz was one of the composers on the Adopt a Music Creator Scheme run by Sound and
Music and Making Music, where they composed a piece for Blackheath Choir that
celebrates the joy of singing with others.
Fraz was a Britten-Pears Young Artist in 2020, and has worked with ensembles including the
Riot Ensemble, the Tallis Scholars, and the Ligeti Quartet. In 2016 Fraz was awarded the Royal
Philharmonic Society Duet prize for composers under 18 and was made Wigmore Hall’s
Apprentice-Composer-In-Residence.
Some other recent projects have included an interactive soundscape as the composer-in-residence
for a conference, a brass fanfare imitating real-world sounds that was performed in St Paul’s Cathedral,
a choose-your-own-adventure style piano piece as part of Psappha’s composing for... scheme, and a piece
for Gloucestershire Youth Orchestra telling the 900 year history of Tewkesbury Abbey.
some links to more info about specific pieces/projects:
Feature in Choir and Organ magazine about my solo Organ piece 'Glitterball'
Article about '4th ought sing raved ink loud' [for thoughts engraved in cloud], an interactive soundscape installation for Centre for Cultural Value's Covid-19 research conference.
Spotlight on 'Some Questions'
Written for a workshop with the Riot Ensemble, this piece really explores and plays with different approaches to notation and communication. I was thinking about the dfferent kinds of questions that exist around a piece of music.
I remember the concert ending (it was in that period after the big lockdowns when it was still novel to see each other) and I had several friends come up to me eager to see the score, and I spread it out on one of RNCM's big tables on the concourse and just chatted to people about it for a while. It was a really nice time and I really enjoyed hearing what people thought about it.
I've recently made this video which shows the score alongside the recording, so you get that secret insight into the piece too - and feel free to let me know your own thoughts or, indeed, questions.