Ian Wilson was born in Belfast in 1964 and obtained the first D.Phil in composition to be awarded by the University of Ulster, which in 1993 commissioned his orchestral work Rise in celebration of the tenth anniversary of its foundation. His music has been performed and broadcast on six continents by artists such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Ulster, Belgrade Philharmonic and Norwegian Radio Orchestras, the London Mozart Players and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Artis, Vogler and Vanbrugh Quartets, Lontano, Avanti! and Camerata Pacifica ensembles, Catherine Leonard and Hugh Tinney. Works have been performed at many festivals including the BBC Proms, Venice Biennale, ISCM World Music Days, Brighton, Cheltenham and the Ultima Festival in Oslo, where Running, Thinking, Finding for orchestra received the composition prize in 1991. He has written over ninety pieces including chamber operas, concertos, orchestral works, string quartets, multi-media pieces and many other chamber and vocal works. In 1992 Ian Wilson was awarded the Macaulay Fellowship administered by the Arts Council of Ireland, and in 1998 he was elected to Aosdána, Ireland's State-sponsored body of creative artists. From 2000 to 2003 Ian Wilson was AHRB Research Fellow in Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Ulster and from 2009 to 2010 is An Foras Feasa post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Dundalk Institute of Technology. His music is published by Ricordi London and Universal Edition.