Ciarán is Associate Professor of Orchestral Conducting. He has been Artistic Director of the UCD Symphony Orchestra since its foundation in 2002, directing over 50 performances, including concerts in Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden and the UK. He teaches modules on performance, analysis, orchestration and twentieth-century music. He has also been a lecturer in orchestral conducting for the BMus Performance Degree at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and for the MA in Film Scoring at Pulse College, Windmill Lane Studios. He is currently Membership Secretary of the SMI (Society for Musicology in Ireland) and Chair of CHMHE (Council of Heads of Music in Higher Education).
Ciarán has conducted concerts with orchestras in Ireland and abroad (Baden Sinfonietta, Dublin Baroque Players, Dublin Screen Orchestra, Dublin Symphony Orchestra, Hibernian Orchestra, Miró Chamber Orchestra, RIAM Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Savaria Symphony Orchestra, Symphony New Hampshire), and enjoyed eight years as Principal Conductor of the Dublin Orchestral Players (2007–15). Through his work with the EAR Ensemble, Hilltown Music Festival, Composer’s Forum Ensemble (Trinity College Dublin) and the UCD Ad Astra Academy, he has been involved in the commissioning and performance of many new works. He has extensive experience as a studio conductor, recording for films, live radio, and Irish, Korean & US TV. He been engaged as a conductor for a diverse range of artists, including the Bootleg Beatles, Jerry Fish, Marvin Hammlisch, Jack Lukeman, Queen Classical, Bill Whelan & the Wolfe Tones.
As a violin and viola player, he has regularly performed with several orchestras (Irish Film Orchestra, Irish Sinfonia, Marlborough Baroque, Orlando Chamber Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra) and popular musicians, notably Elton John, Alison Moyet, Lisa Stansfield, Sinead O’Connor, Eddi Reader & Paul Weller.
Ciaran's academic work has included contributions to conferences in Ireland, Spain, the UK and the United States, and articles on the composers Erik Satie, György Ligeti and Bernard Herrmann. His PhD thesis – "The (Syn)Aesthetics of Modernism" (2008) – was an examination of interactions between music and visual art in the early 20th century. His current research is focused on contrasting roles of the modern conductor, and the machine aesthetic in twentieth-century music.