Raymond Deane

Raymond Deane (born 27 January 1953) is an Irish composer.

Biography

Deane was born in Tuam, County Galway and brought up on Achill Island, County Mayo. From 1963 he lived in Dublin, where initially he studied the piano at the then College of Music with Fionn Ó Lochlainn. He studied at University College Dublin, graduating in 1974, and became a founding member of the Association of Young Irish Composers, a predecessor of today's Association of Irish Composers. He won a number of awards as a pianist. In 1974, Deane won a scholarship to study with Gerald Bennett at the Musikakademie in Basle, Switzerland. He moved on to Cologne as a student of Mauricio Kagel but was persuaded to change to studying with Karlheinz Stockhausen, which Deane abandoned after six months "due to Stockhausen's lack of engagement with his students at this period". With a DAAD scholarship, Deane continued his studies with Isang Yun in Berlin.

In the 1991 Accents Festival in Dublin, he was the featured composer (with Kurtág), also at the 1999 Sligo New Music Festival (with Roger Doyle). He represented Ireland in several ISCM festivals (Mexico City, Manchester, Hong Kong), and works were performed at the festivals l'Imaginaire irlandais (Paris 1996), Voyages (Montreal 2002), Warsaw Autumn (2004), and more than once at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (his Ripieno for orchestra winning a special prize in 2000). He was also the artistic director of the first two RTÉ Living Music Festivals (Dublin 2002 and 2004), showcasing the music of Luciano Berio and contemporary French music respectively. In 2010, a portrait concert of his chamber music took place at the Southbank Centre, London.