Michael McGlynn

Career

Michael McGlynn was born in Dublin and attended Coláiste na Rinne and Blackrock College. He studied Music and English at University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 and a Bachelor in Music degree in 1986. He was a member of the RTÉ Chamber Choir and in 1987 founded the vocal ensemble ANÚNA, originally spelt “An Uaíthne”. McGlynn is the founder and Artistic Director of the vocal ensembles ANÚNA, M’ANAM, and Systir, which together are known as the ANÚNA Collective.{{Cite web |title=Michael McGlynn |url=https://www.pacificchorale.org/artist-details/55/michael-mcglynn

Although best known for choral music, McGlynn has also composed orchestral and instrumental works, cantatas, and masses. In 2007 he premiered the cantata St Francis, a work commissioned by RTÉ, presented in collaboration with University College Dublin’s Louvain Centre for Irish Studies.{{Cite web |title=UCD Hosts Premiere of St Francis |url=https://www.ucd.ie/news/mar07/030207_Louvain.htm

McGlynn’s music has been performed and recorded internationally by professional vocal ensembles including the National Youth Choir of Great Britain,{{Cite web |title=Royal Albert Hall performance record |url=https://catalogue.royalalberthall.com/record/performance/PERF12593

In addition to concert and recording activity, McGlynn has written music for theatre, including productions of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters at the Gate Theatre in Dublin and the Royal Court Theatre in London.{{Cite web |title=Three Sisters |url=https://irishplayography.com/play/three-sisters-mcguinness

McGlynn received the University College Dublin Arts and Humanities Alumni Award in 2017,{{Cite web |title=Michael McGlynn |url=https://alumni.ucd.ie/awards/awardee/michael-mcglynn/ |access-date=13 December 2025}} and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music by University College Dublin in September 2025.{{Cite web |title=Composer Michael McGlynn awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music at UCD |url=https://www.ucd.ie/artshumanities/newsandevents/composermichaelmcglynnawardedanhonorarydoctorateinmusicatucd/

In 2015 McGlynn was invited to present on his music at the American Choral Directors Association National Conference in Salt Lake City, where he led a session titled “The Music of Michael McGlynn and Anúna”, addressing his compositional approach and rehearsal practice. In 2022 he was invited to speak on the genesis of his compositions at the Nordic Choral Directors Conference in Reykjavík.{{Cite web |title=Nordic Choral Directors Conference programme |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220528063850/https://conference.nordklangkorfestival.org/program/daily-scedule/

McGlynn has also undertaken intercultural collaborations in Japan, creating contemporary vocal works in dialogue with traditional Japanese musicians and practitioners of Noh theatre. In 2017 he collaborated with Noh actor Genshō Umewaka on Takahime, a Celtic–Noh adaptation of W. B. Yeats’s At the Hawk’s Well, for which McGlynn composed the score and co-directed the production.{{Cite web |title=インタビュー：梅若玄祥＆マイケル・マクグリン（アヌーナ）　異色の共演「ケルティック能 鷹姫」を語る |url=https://www.cdjournal.com/main/cdjpush/anuna/1000001242

Musical language

McGlynn’s musical language combines elements associated with Irish traditional music, including modal melodic writing, ornamentation, and the use of fixed and shifting drones, with a contemporary harmonic vocabulary characterised by open sonorities, parallel motion, and clustered chordal textures. Scholarly commentary has noted that these elements function less as acts of preservation than as a means of creating new sound worlds that evoke cultural memory and landscape through texture and resonance rather than quotation.{{Cite thesis |last=Rossow |first=Stacie Lee |title=The Choral Music of Irish Composer Michael McGlynn |institution=University of Miami |year=2010 |url=http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_dissertations/438/ |access-date=13 December 2025}}{{Cite thesis |last=Marrolli |first=Karen |title=An Overview of the Choral Music of Michael McGlynn with a Conductor’s Preparatory Guide to His Celtic Mass |institution=Louisiana State University |year=2010 |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313072853/http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11082010-131647/ |access-date=13 December 2025}}

McGlynn has repeatedly stated that he does not consider himself a traditionalist, emphasising that the vocal materials in his work are “impressions” rather than reconstructions of specific historical songs. Academic analysis situates this approach within a broader contemporary practice in which traditional idioms are reimagined through newly composed melodic material shaped for choral performance.

One frequently discussed example of this approach is Dúlamán, a choral setting of a traditional Irish text that employs alternating rhythmic groupings and layered textures. Rather than functioning as an arrangement, the work is cited as an original composition that draws on the structural energy of traditional song while remaining formally independent of any fixed source.

In critical writing on McGlynn’s music, particular attention has been given to its meditative and ritual qualities. In an analysis of O Maria, Seán Doherty describes McGlynn’s compositional approach as privileging stasis, repetition, and suspended harmonic motion, creating what he characterises as a contemplative listening environment in which musical development unfolds through subtle transformation rather than goal-directed progression.

This aesthetic orientation has also been framed in broader historical terms. In the citation accompanying McGlynn’s honorary doctorate, musicologist Harry White characterised his work as a significant reconfiguration of the relationship between Irish-language texts and musical soundscapes within Irish art music, noting its departure from both nationalist revivalism and commercialised “Celtic” idioms in favour of a distinct contemporary voice.{{Cite web |last=White |first=Harry |title=Honorary Degree Citation: Michael McGlynn |publisher=University College Dublin |url=https://www.ucd.ie/president/about/universityawards/honorarydegrees/2025/michaelmcglynn/ |access-date=13 December 2025}}

Selected works

A selection of Michael McGlynn’s original compositions includes works for unaccompanied and accompanied choir, solo voice, instrumental ensemble, and orchestra. His output has been discussed extensively in academic literature on contemporary Irish choral music.

• Invocation (tenor and mixed-voice choir)
• Four Tenebrae Responsories (mixed-voice choir)
• Sensation (speaker, mixed-voice choir, and harp)
• Celtic Mass (mixed-voice choir, soloists, and instrumental ensemble)
• Silver River (oboe and vibraphone; also arranged for choir and orchestra)
• Four Poems on Texts by Rimbaud (soprano and piano)
• Wind on Sea (mixed-voice choir and violin)
• Quis est Deus (mixed-voice choir)
• O Ignis Spiritus (saxophone, mezzo-soprano, and mixed-voice choir)
• Agnus Dei (tenor solo and mixed-voice choir, from And on Earth Peace: A Chanticleer Mass)
• Behind the Closed Eye (choral - orchestral cycle)
• Visions (three movements for soprano saxophone and piano)
• O Maria (mixed-voice choir)
• Brezairola (tenor solo and mixed-voice choir)
• Dúlamán (male-voice choir)
• The Sea (alto flute, flute, and mixed-voice choir)
• Lux Aeterna / The Road of Passage (soprano solo and mixed-voice choir)
• The Rising of the Sun (solo voice, mixed-voice choir, and orchestra)
• Geantraí (mixed-voice choir)
• Pie Jesu (mixed-voice choir and orchestra)
• Maid in the Moor (women’s choir)
• Cúnnla (women’s choir)
• Dormi Jesu (mixed-voice choir)
• My Songs Shall Rise (mixed-voice choir)
• When the War Is Over (mixed-voice choir)
• Victimae (male-voice choir)
• Takahime (mixed voices, incidental music for Noh play)
• Why Should I Sleep? (mixed voices)
• Sunshine & Shadows (song cycle for mixed voices and piano)
• Amhrán na Gaoithe / Song of the Wind (mixed-voice choir)
• O pia virgo (ATBarB)
• The Wind in the Reeds (song cycle for mixed voices and piano)
• M’anam (for low voices)
• Deyr Fé (for low voices and percussion)
• Bitter Wind (for low voices and percussion)
• Gunnarshólmi (for low voices)
• Am gaeth i m-muir (mixed voices)
• Rosc (mixed voices and percussion)
• Tormán (mixed voices and traditional Irish instrumental ensemble)

Selected discography

McGlynn’s music has been recorded extensively, most frequently by the vocal ensemble Anúna, which has served as the principal vehicle for the premiere and dissemination of his work.{{Cite web |title=Michael McGlynn discography |publisher=AllMusic |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/michael-mcglynn-mn0000880804 |access-date=13 December 2025}}

Recordings featuring McGlynn’s music with Anúna

• An Uaithne (1991; cassette only)
• Anúna (1993; re-recorded 2005)
• Invocation (1994; re-recorded 2002)
• Omnis (1995; revised international version 1996)
• Deep Dead Blue (1996; remastered 2004)
• Behind the Closed Eye (1997; remastered 2003), recorded with the Ulster Orchestra
• Cynara (2000)
• Sensation (2006)
• Celtic Origins (2007)
• Christmas Memories (2008)
• Sanctus (2009)
• Illumination (2012)
• Revelation (2015)
• Transcendence (2018)
• Evocation (2018)
• Otherworld (2023)
• Sanctum (2025)
• Eilífð (2025)
• Tochairm (2025)
• Transcendence (reissued and remastered with new running order) (2025)

Recordings by other ensembles

McGlynn’s compositions have also been recorded and performed internationally by ensembles including Chanticleer, Rajaton, Cantus, Kansas City Chorale, Voces8, Apollo5, Phoenix Chorale, and Conspirare, appearing on releases such as And on Earth Peace: A Chanticleer Mass, Boundless, Artifacts: The Music of Michael McGlynn, Where All Roses Go, and Haven.{{Cite web |title=Artifacts – The Music of Michael McGlynn |publisher=Kansas City Chorale |url=https://www.kcchorale.org/product-page/artifacts-the-music-of-michael-mcglynn |access-date=13 December 2025}}

Bibliography

Axel Klein. Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1996. Stacie Lee Rossow. The Choral Music of Irish Composer Michael McGlynn. University of Miami, 2010. Karen Marrolli. An Overview of the Choral Music of Michael McGlynn with a Conductor’s Preparatory Guide to His Celtic Mass. Louisiana State University, 2010. Seán Doherty. “Toward ‘Transcendence’: Music and Meditation in Michael McGlynn’s O Maria.” The Choral Journal 62, no. 7 (2022).

References

References

1. ''The Journal of Music in Ireland'' (Jan.–Feb. 2002).
2. Axel Klein, ''Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert'' (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1996), p. 430.
3. American Choral Directors Association National Conference Programme Book, Choral Journal Vol. 55, No. 7 (2015), pp. 80–81.
4. Doherty, Seán. (2022). "Toward ‘Transcendence’: Music and Meditation in Michael McGlynn’s ''O Maria''". The Choral Journal.