"Listening to it stops me in my tracks.
This is a composer who can get right under the skin."
Bob Gilmore, The Journal of Music in Ireland
ailís ní ríain
Composer and Writer
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MUSIC: "Beautiful Cracked Eyes, a series of unearthly scenes which surprise, move, stimulate and inspire, especially when plucked strings resound eerily from the piano sound-board. Courtesy of Park Lane Group and Arts Council England, Ailis and Adam had undoubtedly set the scene here for a mysterious sound-scape – perhaps one of the most distinctive ever to grace the Purcell Room." - John Wheatley, Tempo, July 2008 "Beautiful Cracked Eyes by Ailis Ni Riain, a confrontational and aggressive piece, toccata-like, that yields to reflection and various contrasts and lute-like sounds from ‘inside the piano’. Ailis Ni Riain’s ability to “challenge, provoke and engage” was here evinced and one wants to hear this piece again and, indeed, more of her music". Colin Anderson, Classical Source, January 2008 "Listening to it stops me in my tracks. This is a composer who can get right under the skin." "Captivating with its icon-like sounds and musical form... Simplicity and intensity are married in a congenial way." "Ailís Ní Ríain contributed Into The Sea Of Waking Dreams - five thoughtful miniatures with brief angry bursts." Martin Dreyer, York Evening Press, June 2007 "Thought provoking and delicately crafted - anger notwithstanding." "The highly individual, not to say eccentric, 2 Steep 4 Sheep (some hills are) for amplified harpsichord and tape by Ailis Ni Riain" "The Dead Live - a deeply impressive performance of an austere, well-written piece by the Irish composer Ailis Ni Riain conducted by James MacMillan"
WRITING "A startlingly confident new Irish play... Ni Riain has hit the ground running... Graeme Maley does not let us off the hook for any of the play's undoubted pain... Strong performances" - Review of TILT Evening Echo, Cork "The voices are orchestrated, the exchanges brittle as if a melodic line were to counterbalance the staccato. What emerges is a sense of the sweetness of a shared victimhood, created with such delicate intensity that it feels as if the audience itself is holding its breath" - Review of TILT, The Irish Times
"Ni Riain has constructed a thing of sad, haunted beauty and inherent musicality. Each rapid-fire phrase pummels the air in a series of blistering crescendos, passed around the family like a choral litany. In truth it's an elegy to their own lost lives, building to a symphony fuelled by love and anger." - Review of TILT. The Glasgow Herald "A perfectly-pitched 45 minutes of theatre that features heart-stopping performances...it promises a fine future for a writer who has only recently turned to theatre, after an early career as a composer that has clearly influenced every breath and intonation of this intense and musical piece of drama." - Review of TILT. The Scotsman "Poetic... graceful... and one hell of a twist"
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