The world now has something rare: a new genuinely comic opera and maybe the most inventive Oscar Wilde opera since Richard Strauss'  Salome more than a century ago. The Los Angeles Times on The Importance of Being Earnest (2012)

Gerald Barry was born in Ireland in 1952 and after completing studies at University College Dublin went to Amsterdam and later Cologne to continue his studies. His time in Germany, where he studied with Stockhausen and Kagel proved to be a liberating experience and he soon came to public attention in 1979 with radical ensemble works __________ and Ø.

Many of his works have been commissioned by the BBC, including Chevaux-de-frise for the Ulster Orchestra at the 1988 Proms, The Conquest of Ireland and Day for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Eternal Recurrence, a setting of Nietzsche for voice and orchestra, and Hard D for the Orkest de Volharding. The Bavarian RSO gave the German première of The Conquest of Ireland in 1998 and Chevaux-de-frise was given its Russian première by the Mariinsky Orchestra in 2007.

Barry’s first opera The Intelligence Park (recorded on NMC), commissioned by the ICA, was first performed at the 1990 Almeida Festival, and a second opera, The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit, written for Channel 4 Television, opened the 2002 Aldeburgh Festival, followed by performances in London and the Berliner Festwochen conducted by Thomas Adés. A new staging will take place in 2013 at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant  was given in 2005 at English National Opera and in 2008 at the Basle Opera. La Plus Forte (The Stronger), a one-act opera on the Strindberg play, was commissioned by Radio France for the 2007 Festival Présences. Sung by Barbara Hannigan, it toured to Amsterdam, London, Dublin, Miami and Toronto.

Barry has enjoyed a long association with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, for whom he wrote Wiener Blut, Dead March and Beethoven. God Save The Queen for choir and the London Sinfonietta was commissioned by London's South Bank Centre for the fiftieth birthday of the Royal Festival Hall in 2001.

Recent works include First Sorrow (string quartet) for the Crash Ensemble, Le Vieux Sourd for piano, commissioned by Betty Freeman, Feldmans Six-Penny Editions for the London Sinfonietta and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Schott and Sons, Mainz for bass solo and choir.

His fifth opera, The Importance of Being Earnest, was written for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Barbican in London, and received its world premiere staging at Opéra Nationale de Lorraine - Nancy. It received an RPS Award for Large-Scale Composition in 2013. Further productions are planned this year for the Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre in June, and Opera Northern Ireland in October. 

Barry is currently working on a piano concerto co-commissioned by Musica Viva, Munich, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to be premiered in November. 

His music has been recorded on the NMC, Largo, Black Box, Marco Polo, BVHaast and RTE labels.