Michael Gallen

Michael Gallen is an Irish composer, writer, director and performer, and is Artistic Director of music-theatre company Straymaker. Works of note include Wilde Stories, a suite for the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Cór na nÓg responding to Oscar Wilde's fairy tales; What You Forget, a large-scale choral work commissioned for the Ireland 1916 Centenary commemorations and Session, a co-creation with dance artists Colin Dunne and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui which toured across the main stages of Europe in 2019/20, including an Irish premiere at the Abbey Theatre. Michael is currently composing an evening-length work entitled Bád ón Alltar for the Orchestre Nationale de Bretagne, Ulster Orchestra and the Irish National Symphony Orchestra, and recently completed Impí, a new piece for soprano and chamber orchestra commissioned by Radio France.  

Michael founded the Straymaker company in 2018 with the goal of creating innovative multidisciplinary and music-theatre projects rooted in an Irish idiom. His opera Elsewhere, the company’s maiden production, premiered at the Abbey Theatre in November 2021 to widespread critical acclaim, described by the Irish Times as “an extraordinary, shocking, funny, and, ultimately, moving piece of contemporary theatre." Created in coproduction with the Abbey Theatre, Once Off Productions and French ensemble Miroirs Étendus, the opera was nominated for the 2021 Fedora Prize and and will tour extensively in 2024. Other Straymaker projects in development include multiplatform music-theatre work The Curing Line, which Michael is composing and directing, and an operatic feature film entitled Ways of Disappearing.     

Michael has been a recipient of numerous Arts Council awards including a Next Generation Bursary, as well as several prestigious national and international residency opportunities. He was a National Trailblazer for Culture Night 2020 and was one of the artists selected to participate in the flagship Platform 31 bursary scheme. He will be the Artist-in-Residence at La Brèche Festival in 2024, creating a new work for the festival.  

Michael was the lead vocalist and songwriter with Irish band Ana Gog and performs as a solo artist under the moniker Sudden Wells, with a new album due for release in Spring 2024.