17 Facts About Tarik O'Regan

Tarik Hamilton O'Regan is a British and American composer.

Tarik O'Regan's compositions are partially represented on numerous recordings which have been recognised with two Grammy nominations.

Tarik O'Regan is the recipient of two British Composer Awards.

Tarik O'Regan's compositions incorporate the influence of Renaissance vocal writing, the music of North Africa, British rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s, jazz and Minimalist music.

Tarik O'Regan's music is often rhythmically complex and employs varying approaches to tonality.

Tarik O'Regan grew up predominantly in Croydon in South London, to an English father of Irish descent and an Algerian mother, spending some of his early childhood in Algeria and Morocco, the latter where his mother was born.

Tarik O'Regan was educated at Whitgift School then Pembroke College, Oxford, where he studied music and, in 1997, he received his first commissions from the Choir of New College, Oxford and James Bowman.

Tarik O'Regan completed his postgraduate studies under the direction of Robin Holloway at Cambridge, where he was appointed Composer in Residence at Corpus Christi College in 2000 and formally began his career as a composer, with his first published works appearing in 2001 on the Finnish Sulasol imprint.

In 2004, Tarik O'Regan moved to New York City to take up the Chester Schirmer Fulbright Fellowship at Columbia University and subsequently a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard.

From 2011 to 2022, Tarik O'Regan composed several pieces influenced by his North African heritage, which included his first collaborations with both the Dutch National Ballet and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, which would eventually culminate in a triptych of orchestral works: Rai, Chaabi and Trances.

Tarik O'Regan's output began to form the focus of festivals such as the 2014 Vale of Glamorgan Festival and New Music for New Age from The Washington Chorus.

In 2023, Tarik O'Regan was one of five composers asked to write a new piece for the coronation service of Charles III and Camilla in Westminster Abbey.

The king commissioned Tarik O'Regan having heard his music at Lincoln Cathedral in 2006.

Tarik O'Regan's setting of the Agnus Dei, Coronation Agnus Dei, was performed during the Eucharist.

Tarik O'Regan's music is mostly written in tonal, extended-tonal and modal languages, often with complicated rhythmic effects and dense textural variation.

In various radio and print interviews, Tarik O'Regan has stated that he "came to music quite late", mentioning the age of 13 as when he first was able to read music, and has listed five primary influences on his work:.

An article in The Irish Times on 23 November 2010 suggested that Tarik O'Regan is interested in his Irish heritage.