About

Linda Buckley is an award winning Irish composer (born in Cork, 1979) who creates electronic and acoustic music, and has a particular interest in working across many disciplines, most notably film and in the realm of drone and dark ambient music. Her NMC record From Ocean’s Floor was featured by Iggy Pop on BBC Radio 6 as “beautiful music – here is somebody really special”. Her work has been described as “sublime and brilliant” (BBC Radio 3), “engaging with an area of experience that new music is generally shy of, which, simplified and reduced to a single word, I’d call ecstasy” (Bob Gilmore, Journal of Music). She has written extensively for orchestra (BBC Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ NSO), was elected to Aosdana in 2021, and is Associate Artist with Chamber Music Scotland.

She has worked in many collaborative contexts including scoring film by Kathryn Ferguson (Nothing Compares co-composed with Irene Buckley, nominated for Best Score at the IFTA Awards and Cinema Eye Honors), Mark Cousins (Like a Huge Scotland and A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things), Pat Collins (That He May Face the Rising Sun co-composed with Irene Buckley, Living in a Coded Land, Henry Glassie: Field Work) and Tadhg O’Sullivan (To The Moon). Awards include a Fulbright scholarship to New York University, a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Frankfurt Visual Music Award (for Silk Chroma) and Gold at the New York Festivals Radio Awards (for Mother’s Blood, Sister Songs documentary with Athena Media).

Recent collaborations include new work for Liam Byrne and Crash Ensemble, Gudrun Gut (Einstürzende Neubauten), Andrew Zolinsky (for Dark Music Days, hcmf and New Music Dublin). She was invited by John Schaefer’s New Sounds Live (WNYC) to present the New York premiere of a new live score to the silent horror film Nosferatu (co-composed with Irene Buckley) at Brookfield Place. Linda holds a Music Degree from University College Cork, a Masters in Music and Media Technologies and a PhD in Composition from Trinity College Dublin. She has lectured in Composition at Trinity College Dublin, Pulse College at Windmill Lane and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In September 2020 her NMC record, From Ocean’s Floor was released: “The Irish composer combines traditional séan-nos singing with an electronic soundscape, connecting past and future … It’s clear how much Buckley deeply connects her past to her present, opening up possibilities for our mutual musical futures.” Guardian – Album of the Month, ‘a masterpiece in connecting the past and future.’ Evening Standard

Past events

July 2022
Brightening for Lina Andonovska & Michelle O’Rourke

New work for duo Lina Andonovska (flute) and Michelle O’Rourke (voice), setting text by Doireann Ní Ghríofa.

Premiere: Clonmel Junction Festival

January 2022
Score to Nothing Compares directed by Kathryn Ferguson to premiere at Sundance Film Festival

Original score for film Nothing Compares with co-composer Irene Buckley.

A feature documentary that tells the story of Sinéad O’Connor’s phenomenal rise to worldwide fame, and how her iconoclastic personality resulted in her exile from the pop mainstream. Focusing on prophetic words and deeds across a five-year period (1987-1992), the film reflects on the legacy of this fearless trailblazer, through a contemporary feminist lens. The film will receive its world premiere at Sundance in January 2022.

September 2021

New album, From Ocean’s Floor, out now on NMC. Featuring Iarla Ó’Lionáird, Crash Ensemble, Isabelle O’Connell, Joby Burgess, Contempo Quartet and Darragh Morgan. Guardian folk album of the month, and Folk Radio editor’s pick.

  • ‘An excellent portrait of one of Ireland’s most interesting composers’ Journal of Music
  • ‘The intensity of her work is irresistible – a generous portrait that is full of surprises and unsettling questions.’  Tim Rutherford-Johnson, The Rambler
  • ‘It’s clear how much Buckley deeply connects her past to her present, opening up possibilities for our mutual musical futures.’ Guardian
  • ‘Music of mythic magic … sublime as well as brilliant –  richly and strangely powerful.’ BBC Radio 3 New Music Show
  • ‘Linda Buckley is unquestionably one of the most exciting, prolific and ‘ecstatic’ composers to come from Ireland in recent times.’ RTÉ
  • ‘Diverse and ultra imaginative work, intense and shimmering…’ BBC Radio Scotland
  • ‘Intelligent, atmospheric and strangely beautiful.’ ★★★★ Songlines
  • The works on this album are captivating; I couldn’t tear myself away.’ ★★★★ BBC Music Magazine