Gareth Glyn was born in Machynlleth, mid-Wales, in 1951, but has lived since 1978 on Anglesey, an island whose history, mythology and landscape have been important influences on his work as a composer, as has his Welsh identity.
His works were first broadcast by the BBC while he was studying music at Merton College, Oxford.
His compositions have been commissioned and played by eminent orchestras, ensembles and bands, and include orchestral, chamber, solo instrumental and vocal works, musicals, songs and song-cycles for professionals, amateurs and children, music for brass band, and large-scale works for orchestra, narrators, actors and audience-participation. Compositions like EGAD! and Strings on the Wing - and arrangements of classical works - which can be performed by players of many different abilities simultaneously, are now used by orchestras worldwide, including the LSO, the Berlin Philharmonic, L’Orchestre de Paris, Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony, L’Orchestre Symphonique Divertimento, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Australian World Orchestra and San Diego Symphony. His multi-ability arrangement of Elgar’s Nimrod opened the 2012 London Olympic Games.
2017 saw the première and tour of his Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd (A Week in a Future Wales), a commissioned full-length opera in the Welsh language – the first of its kind to be composed for over a century; it was judged Best Production in the Welsh Language in the Wales Theatre Awards 2018.
His music has been broadcast on the BBC (Radios 2, 3 and 4) and Classic FM, and on radio stations in various countries including North America, Canada, Holland, New Zealand and Australia.
Gareth Glyn received an Honorary Fellowship from Bangor University, and the rank of Honorary Druid in the National Eisteddfod’s Gorsedd of Bards, for his services to music in Wales.
