Founder and Artistic Director of the Irish Memory Orchestra, Dave Flynn is a composer and guitarist equally at home in the worlds of classical, folk and rock music. His work, praised for its ‘’power and grittiness’’ by The New York Times, defies and challenges the concept of musical genre.

He has been commissioned by RTÉ, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Arts Council of Ireland, the Masters of Tradition Festival and the Contemporary Music Centre.

As a ceaseless cross-genre collaborator, he has worked with an array of internationally renowned artists including the RTÉ Concert, Irish Chamber and Prague Chamber Orchestras; the New Juilliard, Crash and Concorde Ensembles; the Con Tempo, Vanbrugh and Smith Quartets; Irish fiddle players Martin Hayes and Liz Carroll; singer-songwriters Declan O’Rourke and Vyvienne Long; Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu; Estonian bagpiper Juhan Suits; jazz guitarist Hugh Buckley and Norwegian choreographer Gerd-Kaisa Vorren.

His work has been performed in New York’s Museum of Modern Art; The Kremlin, Moscow; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; Dvorak Hall, Prague; Brisbane Conservatory of Music and Ireland’s National Concert Hall and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, City of London Festival, Guitar Festival of Ireland, EBU Folk Festival and the Secret Festival, Sweden.

He has featured on RTÉ TV, TG4, Lyric FM and BBC Ulster. In 2009 an edition of John Schaefer’s New Sounds radio show was dedicated to Flynn’s music and broadcast throughout the US on WNYC.

Numerous awards and grants include the composers’ awards at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Dublin Feis Ceoil, multiple grants from the Arts Council of Ireland and Culture Ireland and bursaries from the Bliss Trust, Guildhall Trust, Galway County Council and Michael Collins Memorial Foundation.

He has founded several performing groups including The Tune Makers and The Irish Memory Orchestra. His 2009 solo album ‘Contemporary Traditional Irish Guitar’ was acclaimed in folk and classical music publications.

Flynn completed his PhD dissertation ‘Traditional Irish Music: A Path to New Music’ through the Dublin Institute of Technology, where he also obtained his BMus Degree in Composition. He holds a Master’s degree in Composition from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Recent achievements include winning the 2016 Galway Eamonn Ceannt commission award and receiving commissions for the Crash Ensemble and the Arts Council’s Cultural Programme for Ireland’s Presidency of the EU. An album of his string quartet music produced by Grammy winner Judith Sherman has been recorded for future release.

Flynn’s music has been published by Mel Bay, Reed Music and Frisbee Publications.