29 June 2025 at 20:00

Gerard Gillen

Gerard Gillen was Titular Organist of Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral from 1976 to 2018  and was Professor and Head of Music at Maynooth  University from 1985 to 2007. A First Class Honours graduate of University College, Dublin, Oxford University, and the Royal Conservatoire of Music, Antwerp (where he gained the Prix d'Excellence, Professor Gillen has an international reputation as an organ recitalist and has given recitals throughout Europe, the Middle East, America and Australia, performing at such prestigious venues as the Royal Festival Hall, London, King’s College, Cambridge, St Thomas, New York, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, St Thomas’, Leipzig, St Bavo, Haarlem, Notre Dame and La Madeleine, Paris, etc. He has also been a member of international competition juries in Oxford, Ann Arbor, London, Graz and Dublin. Gerard Gillen was founder of the Dublin International Organ & Choral Festival (now ‘Pipeworks’) of which he was artistic director from 1990-2000. He is currently chair of the Advisory Committee on Church Music to the Irish Episcopal Conference. In 1984 he was conferred with a Knighthood of St. Gregory (KCSG) by the Vatican. Other honours include the John Betts Visiting Fellowship at Oxford (1992), and in 1996 he was nominated the classical winner in Ireland's TV National Entertainment Awards, the first and only organist to be so honoured. In 2006 he was made a Chevalier des Ars et des Lettres by the French Government and received similar honours from the governments of Austria and Belgium, and in 2007 he was conferred with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa by the Pontifical University of Maynooth. He was also elected to Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Irish Academy of Music (FRIAM).