Philip Hammond

Philip Hammond (b. 1951) is an Irish composer. He was born in Belfast. He graduated from Queen's University Belfast in 1974 as a Bachelor of Music and Master of Arts. In 2003 he was awarded a Doctorate of Music from Queen’s. His first major commission, Thanatos (1977), was written for the choir of the Royal Victoria Hospital. One of Hammonds most frequently performed pieces, French Blue, was commissioned by the GPA Dublin International Piano Competition. It was a test piece for the competition. Hammond was a Director at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. While at the Arts Council, Hammond spent two years seconded to the Northern Ireland government to design and manage an international arts festival in Washington DC to accompany Northern Ireland's role as a featured region in the 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. After he retired from the Arts Council, Hammond continues to compose, write, and is a regular presenter and correspondent on the BBC and the Irish state broadcaster RTÉ as an arts correspondent and music critic. He currently writes for The Belfast Telegraph and the Culture Northern Ireland website. Hammond composed a series of piano pieces focused on Lorca and written for the Irish pianist Cathal Breslin for his debut recital at the Carnegie Hall, New York, in June 2009. In April 2012, the first performance of his Requiem for the Lost Souls of the Titanic was performed in Belfast Cathedral on hundredth anniversary of the sinking. This large-scale work was broadcast by the BBC and RTÉ.