Gribbin was born in
Belfast. She studied at
Queen's University Belfast where, at the age of twenty, she began to compose. Further studies were in London (at the
Guildhall School of Music with (
Robert Saxton) and in Denmark (with
Per Nørgård). Her first professional success came when her piano piece
Per Speculum in Aenigmate won the
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Composition Prize. Subsequent major works have included the piano quartet
Jack B. (inspired by the work of the Irish painter
Jack B. Yeats), the piano trio
How to Make the Water Sound, the opera
Hey Persephone!, the violin concerto
Venus Blazing, which was directed by Lou Stein with lighting by Jeff Ravitz, and
The Binding of The Years, for piano and orchestra.
Celestial Pied Piper was published as part of Faber's Millennium Series. She lived in New York where she was a
Fulbright Fellow. Several of her works respond to the political climate of her homeland, such as the ensemble piece
Tribe, the orchestral work
Unity of Being, which was performed by the
Ulster Orchestra as part of the UK WITH NY Festival in New York after 9/11, and her epic percussion concerto
Goliath, premiered at the Belfast Festival in 2006. She has written extensively for radio including music for
The Possessed, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and
Embers, starring Patrick Stewart. She wrote the music for Sky Picture's
My Kingdom, starring Richard Harris and her string quartet
Hearing your genes Evolve, based on DNA was featured in the Filmtank Production
The Dark Gene. She won an award in the 2003 UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers with her orchestral work
Empire States, and an Arts Foundation Award for her first opera
Hey Persephone!. She was Artistic Director of the London-based
Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM), 2003–05. Richard Morrison of the
Times wrote of her in June 2004: "This Belfast born composer is one of the most original thinkers in years." In 2019, The
Arts Council of Northern Ireland awarded Gribbin a Major Individual Award. Gribbin lectures in composition at
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich. In 2020 Gribbin won a PRS Composers' Award. ==External links==