Achievements and Distinctions

Simon Mawhinney was born in Co. Armagh and was educated at the universities of Oxford, York and Queen’s, Belfast. His compositions have been performed throughout the world by an international range of leading performers and ensembles and have received a wide range of awards and prizes, including the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize. His music has been commissioned by several major international music festivals and has been broadcast on numerous occasions. He recently recorded his large-scale piano work Reflux for broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Simon Mawhinney’s compositions are characterised by a blend of sensuousness and severity, which is frequently combined with dazzling virtuosity; they frequently exploit the listener’s awareness of time in music and explore the extent to which the duration of a work can be treated as a rhetorical device in itself. He has a particular interest in the music of Boulez, Sorabji, Ferneyhough and Murail.

Piano performance forms an integral part of Mawhinney’s work. Described by the Irish Times as ‘ardent’ performer, he has a wide repertoire ranging from Bach to Boulez, giving performances which have received critical acclaim throughout Europe. A review of a recent all-Chopin recital described the performance as ‘weighty, intellectual, hard-edged and exhilarating.’


Research Interests

Composition (instrumental and electronic media).
Computer-assisted composition.
The music of Boulez, Sorabji, Messiaen and the Spectral School.

Current Work

Ensemble composition for Ensemble Recherche. 
Work for contrabass clarinet and electronics for Garth Davis. 
A work for viola d'amore, ensemble and electronics. 
A large-scale piano work.

Selected Publications

• Starbog - a virtuosic work for ensemble which was commissioned by Psappha and was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in December 2006
• Hunshigo - large-scale work for violin and piano, performed by Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea in Washington D.C. in May 2007
• Nendrum Haykal - work for solo viola d'amore
• Reflux - large-scale piano work