SIMON O'CONNOR

Simon O’Connor is the Director of the Museum of Literature Ireland, a creative collaboration between UCD and the National Library of Ireland. MoLI has won numerous awards since opening, including the Business to Arts Best Philanthropic Support of the Arts award 2021,  Red Dot Best Exhibition Design 2020,  IDEA Exhibition Design Gold Award 2021, and is shortlisted for the European Mies Van Der Rohe Architecture Award 2022. A composer by training, Simon was also the founding curator of the Little Museum of Dublin, building that museum from scratch in 2011 and winning numerous awards in the process, including the European Commission’s Europa Nostra award for Cultural Heritage.  Simon was a founding member of rock group The Jimmy Cake, and as a composer, he has studied with Donnacha Dennehy and Kevin Volans. He is published on the Ergodos label. Notable works include the acclaimed piano suite "What is Living and What is Dead", and the song cycle collaboration with mezzo-soprano Michelle O'Rourke, "Left Behind - Songs of the 1916 Widows".

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Appointed: 16th November 2021