Ciarán Crilly is Associate Professor of Orchestral Conducting in the UCD School of Music. He is Conductor/Artistic Director of the UCD Symphony Orchestra and has directed over sixty performances with them in venues such as the National Concert Hall, the National Convention Centre, and the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in Dublin, as well as on tour in Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. He was Artistic Director of the UCD Ad Astra Academy for the Performing Arts (Music) 2011–18 and Head of the UCD School of Music 2018–23. He is a regular guest lecturer in orchestral conducting for the BMus Performance Degree at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the MA in Scoring for Film, TV and Interactive Media at Pulse College, Windmill Lane Studios.
Ciarán attended King's College London and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (BMus, 1993), Goldsmiths, University of London (MA, 1999), and UCD (PhD, 2008), studying orchestral conducting at the Prague Conservatory of Music (1996–97). He attended masterclasses in Hungary (Dominique Rouits, Savaria Symphony Orchestra), The Netherlands (Peter Eötvös, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra), Ireland (Gerhard Markson, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra), and Austria (Salvador Mas Conde, Baden Sinfonietta), and was Highly Commended at the Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors (2005).
Ciarán has conducted orchestras in Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US. In Ireland, he has held positions with the Dublin Symphony Orchestra (Principal Guest Conductor 2003–06), Dublin Baroque Players (Guest Conductor 2007–08), Dublin Orchestral Players (Principal Conductor 2007–15), and DYO Symphony Orchestra (Guest Conductor 2022–23), and has also conducted groups including the Dublin County Choir, Irish Doctors Orchestra, Irish Film Orchestra, Hibernian Orchestra, Mornington Singers, Resurgam, RIAM Symphony Orchestra, and RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Working with the EAR Ensemble, Hilltown Music Festival, Composer’s Forum Ensemble (Trinity College Dublin), and the UCD Ad Astra Academy, he has been involved in the commissioning and performance of many new works. He has recorded extensively for film, TV, radio and commercial releases, and conducted ensembles for a diverse range of artists (Bootleg Beatles, Jerry Fish, Marvin Hammlisch, Jack Lukeman, Queen Classical, Bill Whelan, Wolfe Tones). As a violin and viola player, he has regularly performed with several orchestras (Irish Film Orchestra, Marlborough Baroque, Orlando Chamber Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra) and popular musicians (Elton John, Kormac, Alison Moyet, Lisa Stansfield, Paul Weller).
Ciarán was the recipient of an Irish Research Council Scholarship to fund his PhD, entitled "The (Syn)Aesthetics of Modernism: Music and Visual Art in the Early Twentieth Century" (2008). He has been an external examiner for Cork School of Music, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Griffith College Dublin, Pulse College, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He has contributed to academic conferences in Ireland, Malta, Spain, the UK, and the United States, and has published articles/chapters on the composers Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Satie, Ligeti, and Bernard Herrmann. He is co-editor, with Róisín Blunnie from DCU, of "Perspectives on Conducting," published by Routledge in 2024. He was a member of the Council of the Society for Musicology in Ireland (2021–24) and Chair of the Council for Heads of Music in Higher Education (2019–23). He in the incoming Chair of the Board of Directors for Dublin Youth Orchestras (2024–27).