Desmond Earley

As the founding artistic director of the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin, Desmond Earley has built the group into a distinctive ensemble of international significance. He is also active as a composer, arranger, editor, and keyboard player. Earley was born in Ireland in 1974. He attended University College Dublin, receiving both bachelor and music degrees there as an undergraduate. He also earned a teaching certificate at the school but then switched to conducting for good, attending the Royal Irish Academy of Music for a doctoral degree in performance. In 1998, Earley formed the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin, a collegiate choral ensemble that differed greatly from others across the British Isles. Earley chose a repertory that reflected the influence of Irish literature and folk music, and the group, almost alone among contemporary choirs, has amassed a substantial listenership in the folk music community. The Scholars have consistently become more widely known, working with film composers Ennio Morricone and Hans Zimmer, and making their debut at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2019. Earley remains the group's director, and he was also artistic director of Ad Astra Performing Arts at University College Dublin from 2011 to 2016. During the 2017-2018 academic year, he served as visiting conductor at Bowdoin College in Maine and Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. In 2018, he was named the guest conductor of the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir. It was in the U.S. that Earley wrote his best-known composition, Body of the Moon (2017), setting texts by Galileo Galilei and marking the U.S. total solar eclipse of that year. The work was commissioned by Oregon's All Classical Portland Radio. Earley has arranged choral pieces for various ensembles in addition to the Choral Scholars, including the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine, Tenebrae, and the Irish Baroque Orchestra. He has served as the editor of the College Choral Series issued by publisher Seolta Music. Earley's music has also been published by Music Sales (U.K.), the Hal Leonard Corporation (U.S.), and Alliance Music (U.S.). The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin were signed to the Signum Classics label and issued their first album there, Invisible Stars: Choral Music of Ireland & Scotland, in 2016. They followed that up with Perpetual Twilight in 2019 and the holiday release, Be All Merry, in 2020.
© James Manheim /TiVo