Stephen McNeff

Stephen McNeff is originally from Ireland but brought up in Wales and educated at the Royal Academy of Music in London. After working as a musician and composer in theatre he became Composer in Residence at the Banff Centre in Canada. He is best known for his work in opera, starting with Clockwork (based on the Philip Pullman novel) which was seen at the Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre. The ROH then commissioned Gentle Giant, adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s book. He went on to be the first Royal Philharmonic Society/PRSF ‘Composer in the House’ with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and this led to an increasing recognition of his versatility and adaptability in a wide range of genres. Equally at home in the concert hall or theatre, works like the operas, Vivienne (2014), Banished (2016) and Beyond the Garden (2020) have enjoyed wide audiences both in the UK and abroad, while choral pieces for the BBC Singers and Chamber Choir Ireland sit alongside solo instrumental works and concertos for oboe, flute and, most recently, saxophone quartet. Hedd Wyn, his opera commissioned by Welsh National Opera for TV was released on CD in 2022, while his song cycle for tenor Gavan Ring and pianist Louise Thomas, Ballads of a Bogman, was premiered in California, broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM and heard at the Wexford Festival. In 2023 the BBC broadcast The Horizons of Doubt (with a text by poet Aoife Mannix) performed by the BBC Singers in a concert featuring a his a capella works. Other recent commissions include Dives and Lazarus for Chamber Choir Ireland premiered in Dublin and Belfast, and Spirits Unsurrendered, an opera oratorio at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin. His opera A Star Next to the Moon, based on Juan Rulfo’s iconic novel Pedro Páramo, was premiered at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and his orchestral song cycle, The Celestial Stranger – a joint commission between the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin, was broadcast in the UK and Ireland. Forthcoming projects include the premiere of his Trumpet Concerto with soloist Jonathan Clarke and the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and the UK premiere of Ballads of a Bogman next 17th March at the Wigmore Hall with tenor Gavan Ring and accompanist Fiachra Garvey.

November 2025