Ben Howard returns with his 4th album, Collections From The Whiteout, produced alongside Aaron Dessner (The National). The foreboding darkness that coated Ben’s second record I Forget Where We Were and thinly veiled its follow up Noonday Dream, isn’t so evident on Collections. These are songs written from headlines scanned, or news stories scrolled past, providing inspiration for a selection of vivid narrative snapshots – the death of amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst (Crowhurst’s Meme); Russian fraudster Anna Sorokin (Sorry Kid); the man who stole and crashed a plane in Seattle (The Strange Last Flight Of Richard Russell); and the dismembered body a friend of his father found in a suitcase floating along the Thames (Finders Keepers). Alongside them, the personal anecdotes from the same scattered period living between Paris, Devon and Spain. Yussef Dayes features, as does Kate Stables (This Is The Kit), James Krivchenia (Big Thief), Kyle Keegan (Hiss Golden Messenger), and Dessner. Thomas Bartlett, St. Vincent’s go-to pianist, and Rob Moose, a long-standing arranger of strings for Bon Iver, are also present. Long-term guitarist to Ben’s band, Mickey Smith (A Blaze of Feather), remains a reassuring constant. It’s a sonic adventure that continues this nagging suggestion that Ben is one of the UK’s most inventive and naturally talented songwriters. CFTW is his latest opus, and arguably his most fully realised to date.

As a composer and performer, Ryan Molloy’s work has been performed to international audiences on four continents for over fifteen years, including major concert venues such as Lucerne Hall, KKL (Switzerland), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), Holywell Music Room (England) and Waterfront Hall (N. Ireland). In great demand as an accompanist, he has recorded over a dozen albums and his repertoire spans numerous genres from traditional Irish music to contemporary classical music. Currently a lecturer in composition at Maynooth University, Ryan studied at the University of Oxford and latterly at Queen’s University Belfast where he completed his PhD ‘The Traditional Contemporary Dichotomy in Irish Art Music: A New Compositional Approach’ under the supervision of Dr Simon Mawhinney and Prof. Piers Hellawell.

Ryan’s compositional work has won numerous prizes and has been broadcast both nationally and internationally on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Ulster, RTÉ Lyric FM, Radio 1 and Ráidió na Gaeltachta as well as on BBC 2, UTV and BBC World. From 2012 to 2014, Ryan’s compositional work was supported by a BBC Performing Arts Fund Fellowship in association with Moving on Music. 
In early 2017, Ryan released a CD of his piano works entitled Innisfail, recorded by award-winning American pianist Alexander Bernstein. Other recently completed works include a violin concerto for Darragh Morgan and the Ulster Orchestra, and Gortnagarn II a commission from the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble.

Past collaborations include diverse performers and ensembles such as the Danish String Quartet (DK), Concorde Ensemble (IE), EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble (UK), Ulster Orchestra (NI), Composers’ Ensemble (UK), Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble (NI), Konvergence Ensemble (CZ), Franziska Schroeder (AT/NI), Carla Rees (UK), Zoë Conway, New Dublin Voices, Elizabeth Hilliard & David Bremner, and Nick Roth (IE).

Ryan is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre (www.cmc.ie).

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