Tarik O'Regan

Tarik Hamilton O’Regan is a London-born composer based in San Francisco, whose music explores themes of heritage, identity, and collective memory. Often shaped by his Arab and Irish backgrounds, his work spans orchestral, choral, operatic, and chamber music, and has been recognized with two GRAMMY® nominations and two Ivors®.

Tarik’s music is described as “exquisite and delicate” (The Washington Post); “beautifully-imagined, holding the audience rapt” (The Financial Times); “sublime: a piece that you didn't want to end” (The Times, London); and generating “previously unheard sound worlds with astonishing effect” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). He has worked with a wide variety of ensembles and organizations; these include the Dutch National Ballet, Houston Grand Opera, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Sydney Dance Company, BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and the Royal Opera House in London. O’Regan's compositions are published exclusively by Novello and have been recorded on more than 47 albums.

“One of the leading composers of his generation” (Gramophone) who is writing “music of startling beauty” (The Observer), Tarik was born in in 1978. He grew up predominantly in Croydon, South London, spending some of his childhood in Morocco, where his mother was born, and in Algeria. Following the completion of his undergraduate studies at Pembroke College, Oxford, and private study with Jeremy Dale Roberts, he began serving as the classical recording reviewer for The Observer newspaper, a position he held for four years. During part of this time he also worked for investment bank JPMorgan Chase. He then continued his postgraduate studies in composition under the direction of both Robin Holloway at Cambridge University, where he was appointed Composer-in-Residence at Corpus Christi College, and Robert Saxton.

He has been appointed to the Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship at Columbia University; a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard; and positions at Trinity and Corpus Christi Colleges in Cambridge, Yale, Stanford, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He has served on the composition faculty of Rutgers University, and as Senior Advisor to the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University. O'Regan is also an accomplished broadcaster, having written and presented numerous documentaries, including Composing LA and Composing New York for BBC Radio. He is a frequent contributor to public discussions of classical music on radio and television.

Tarik maintains a longstanding commitment to education and service to the arts in general. This has been acknowledged by his election to an Honorary Fellowship of Pembroke College, Oxford, and his inclusion in the Washington Post’s 2022 list of creative artists who are “changing the classical landscape.”

Bestowed with the Coronation Medal by King Charles III for his Agnus Dei, commissioned for the Coronation Service at Westminster Abbey, O’Regan is also the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Yaddo Artist Medal.

www.tarikoregan.com