Bryce Dessner is a vital and rare force in new music. He has won Grammy Awards as a classical composer, with his band The National, and for his work in film music. He is regularly commissioned to write for the world’s leading ensembles, from Orchestre de Paris to Los Angeles Philharmonic, and is in demand as composer in residence. He is also a high-profile, Oscar-nominated presence in film score composition, with credits including Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant with the late Ryuichi Sakamoto and Fernando Meirelles’s The Two Popes.
The 2025/26 season includes composer residencies at Konzerthaus Berlin and with Czech Philharmonic; world premieres of his works at Carnegie Hall, Dublin’s National Concert Hall and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; plus the soundtrack release to Train Dreams (Netflix).
Autumn 2025 saw Dessner receive the Samuel Beckett Gold Medal from Trinity College Dublin, recognising his outstanding contribution to public discourse through the arts. Previous recipients include Joan Baez, Patti Smith and George Martin.
“Bryce is one of the leading figures of the new" ~ Esa-Pekka Salonen
“He is a major voice of his generation” ~ Steve Reich
Dessner is Konzerthaus Berlin’s 2025-26 composer-in-residence, beginning in September with performances of his Piano Concerto by Alice Sara Ott - for whom Dessner wrote his concerto - and Joana Malwitz conducting the Konzerthausorchester. Throughout the year the residency will dive into Dessner’s catalogue with performances of his concertos and a special ‘Bryce Dessner and Friends’ concert. Meanwhile Dessner’s composer residency with Czech Philharmonic began in January 2026 with him performing his work St. Carolyn by the Sea with Jakub Hrusa conducting. The first of several world premieres took place in November 2025, of Dessner’s Cello Concerto, Trembling Earth, with Anastasia Kobekina, National Symphony Orchestra Ireland and Andre de Ridder at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, where Dessner was last season artist-in-residence. The work was co-commissioned by NCH Dublin, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust for the Philharmonia Orchestra.
In January 2026 SO Percussion gave the world premiere of a co-commission by Carnegie Hall, SO percussion and Cal Performances. Dessner's new work saw the ensemble perform with the electric dulcimer-like ‘chord stick’ that he invented for them several years ago. Meanwhile the world premiere of Bryce Dessner’s new work Love, Icebox - a conceptually staged programme with dramaturgy and electronics, based on excerpts of the letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham – took place at Paris’ Fondation Louis Vuitton in December 2025. Actress Isabelle Huppert and pianist Alice Sara Ott starred in this unique work, which incorporates methods from Cage’s own composing. Dessner’s creation was programmed in conjunction with the Fondation’s major retrospective of painter Gerhard Richter, upon whom John Cage was a significant influence.
Dessner’s notable presence in the world of film music continued with the release of the anticipated film, Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley, which received advance rave reviews (e.g. The Times, 5*) upon premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The score’s title song, co-written by Dessner and Nick Cave, received an Academy Award (Oscar) nomination in 2026 for Best Original Song.
In August 2024, Bryce Dessner released Solos (Sony Classical), showcasing his collection of solo instrumental pieces in collaboration with some of the world’s leading musicians, including Katia Labèque, Anastasia Kobekina, Pekka Kuusisto, Nadia Sirota, Colin Currie and Lavinia Meijer. Dessner’s recordings also include El Chan; St. Carolyn by the Sea (both on Deutsche Grammophon); Aheym, commissioned by Kronos Quartet; Tenebre, an album of his works for string orchestra recorded by Germany’s Ensemble Resonanz and which won a 2019 Opus Klassik award and a Diapason d’Or; When we are inhuman with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Eighth Blackbird (2019) and Impermanence (2021) with Australian String Quartet and which won the Libera award.
Also active as a curator, Dessner is regularly requested to programme festivals and residencies around the world, such as at the Barbican, Philharmonie de Paris, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich, where during the 2023-24 season he was Creative Chair. Dessner co-curates the Irish festival, Sounds from a Safe Harbour.
““—you can hear a furiously complicated musical mind chattering. Dessner’s sensibility as a composer is furtive, urgent, intense.”
“But Dessner’s mordant vision is uniquely his; these are real, meaty works, troubling and beautiful.””
“....the New York Philharmonic gave the New York premiere of a double piano concerto by a pop artist with classical and indie rock credentials. With the composer in attendance, the piece, lovingly crafted to show off the evening’s soloists, Katia and Marielle Labèque, had a strong claim as the evening’s centerpiece.’”
“His harmony is familiarly tonal, but he relishes dissonance and tension, and dances with a visceral rhythmic playfulness. He seems to enjoy turning harmonies upside down, and bouncing them around, examining how they reflect light.’”