ARTIST PROFILE:
Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble

Aisling Agnew - Flute / Artistic Director
Daniel Browell - piano
David McCann - violincello
Joanne Quigley McParland, violin
Sarah Watts, clarinet

“A ground-breaking and dynamic ensemble” Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble is Northern Ireland’s cutting-edge contemporary music group, featuring a world-class group of musicians who specialise in the performance of modern music.

Hard Rain have performed at major festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Musicahora Festival in Chile, and Classical:NEXT in Berlin as well as closer to home at New Music Dublin, Sonorities Festival, Walled City Music and Belfast International Festival.

The 2025/26 season will see them perform extensively at home, and abroad on international stages across Europe, South America and Asia, including their London debut at Southbank Centre in July 2025.

Hard Rain was founded by composer Greg Caffrey in 2013. They have given multiple premieres and through active commissioning (around 85 pieces to date), have developed a dedicated following for new music in their home city of Belfast and beyond. They feature on several successful recordings, including Up By the Roots (Delphian), The Tyndall Effect (Métier) and their debut double CD A Terrible Beauty (Diatribe). A former Guardian pick of the week with works by eleven Irish composers, it is “ ...an extraordinary demonstration of the sheer range of colour it is possible to extract from this type of ensemble...” (The Journal of Music)