Brian Bridges

Brian Bridges is Senior Lecturer in Music and Creative Audio, and is a composer and sonic artist whose academic work spans music technology, creative practice, and interdisciplinary arts and arts-technology research.

He has been Research Director for Music, Drama, Performing Arts, and Film/Screen Studies since 2017, and his own research engages with themes of embodiment and materiality, spatiality, presence, and interfaces between human and machine.

Brian led Ulster’s submission in Music, Drama, Performing Arts, and Film/Screen Studies to the UK REF (Research Excellence Framework) 2021 assessment, which saw his unit being ranked joint first in the UK for research impact, alongside achieving a 100% 'world leading' and 'internationally excellent' research environment score for the first time. The unit is a growing community of 24 academic staff and a similar number of PhDs, working across and between the practice-led fields of Music, Drama, Film/Screen, Computer Games and Heritage and Museum Studies. In addition, Brian served on the REF PCE (People Culture and Environment) pilot panel for UoA33 (Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, and Film/Screen) in 2025.

Creative Practice and Practice-as-Research

Much of Brian's work is informed by theories including embodied cognition, technological affordances, and cybernetic models, with a focus on how embodiment, materiality, cross-modality and spatial immersion shape musical and sonic experience.

His creative practice spans modular synthesis, performance systems design, microtonal composition, electroacoustic music, and spatial sound installations.

Brian is a founder–member of the Dublin–based Spatial Music Collective, and more recently the Derry-based festival Oscillations and Modulations, and his compositions have been programmed at festivals in Europe, the Americas and China. He has received support and commissions from arts organisations including the Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, the Contemporary Music Centre and Resonance FM. Recent performances include Huddersfield and Belfast festivals in 2023, and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival in 2024.

Academic and Practitioner Studies

Brian graduated from Trinity College Dublin (MPhil in Music and Media Technologies, 2003) and National University of Ireland, Maynooth (BA in English and Music, 2001; PhD in Music, 2013). He also undertook private studies in the US with Glenn Branca (2005) and Tony Conrad (2006), supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, which consolidated his interests in microtonality, leading to it becoming his PhD topic: Towards a Perceptually-grounded Theory of Microtonality. 

Research Interests and Key Publications

Research interests include the application of embodied models to musical practices, sound design, and the design of performance systems and interfaces, including immersive contexts and generative approaches, with publications in fora including the proceedings of New Interfaces for Musical Expression, International Conference on Auditory Display, International Computer Music Conference, journals including Journal of Sonic Studies and the Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces and volumes on sound design, sound spatialisation, and sound in interaction published by Routledge (including Focal Press) and Springer.

Current Research Projects and Interdisciplinary Initiatives

Current projects include leading on the £469k Presence Lab (Higher Education Research Capital: DfE), which is investigating interdisciplinary technological practices in Music, Drama, Film/Screen, and Computer Games, and serving as a co-investigator on the AHRC CoSTAR Screen Lab. He also serves as Ulster's academic lead on the Practice-as-Research strand of the NI Research Culture project, a collaboration with Queen's University Belfast funded by the Wellcome Trust,  as well as chairing the practice-as-research working group which helped inform the development of Ulster's 2023-28 research strategy.

Broader research interests include interdisciplinary connections between arts and humanities and STEM, and he has served as Vice-President and President of the Irish Sound, Science and Technology Association (co-hosting four international academic conference-festivals 2016-2019), as well as co-founding the Hearts of STEM arts-science festival (2016-18) and Oscillations and Modulations festival of synthesisers and electronic music techiques (2018-present), the latter being the first event of its type on the island of Ireland. 

PhD Coordination 

Brian served as PG Tutor (Director of PhD Studies) for his unit from 2017-23, overseeing growth and a rise in completions such that the unit has overtaken its REF2021 completion figure at mid-way through the current REF cycle. In the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2023, this unit ranked 2nd within Ulster University overall, with a GPA of 4.53, contributing to the university’s placement as 4th in the UK. In PRES 2019, the unit achieved 1st place within the university for PhD ‘Research Culture’, with a mean score of 4.08, significantly above the UK sector average of 3.7.

PhD supervision

(all FT PhDs DEL/DfE or VCRS Scholarship)

Current (4): 

co-supervised with Dr A. Melvin

Peter O’Doherty - topic: Spatial Music Composition (title TBC)

co-supervised with Prof. B. Irvine and Dr R. Casey

Patrick Moore - Integration of technology expanding the audience experience in contemporary composition through interactive systems

Co-supervised with Dr A. Melvin and Dr R. Casey

Aaron McGlinchey - The Sound of Pre-Christian Ireland: An Environmental Sound Art Portfolio of Ireland’s Unique Acoustical Spaces

Colin Woods - Erosion of the creator-performer-observer paradigm in improvised open works

Completed (8): 

co-supervised with Prof. F. Lyons and Prof. B. Irvine:

Darragh Morgan (completed, 2023): PhD by Published Work: 

Unlocking the unconventional: investigating the multifaceted role of the contemporary violinist with new perspectives on style, collaboration and innovation. 

co-supervised with Prof. F. Lyons and Dr R. Casey: 

Lewis Smith (completed, 2023): Inclusive software design enabling disabled and non-disabled musicians to compose and perform music in an immersive virtual environment

co-supervised with Dr Liz Doherty: 

Aidan O'Donnel (completed 2020): Tuning In: Practices in tuning and pitch related inflections in the Donegal fiddle sound community.

co-supervised with Prof. F. Lyons:

Matthew Jacobson (completed 2021): The Space Between: exploring spontaneity, group interaction and social context in improvised performances of motivic compositions

Mike Nielsen (completed 2017): Improvising a System: Microtonal Practices on a Self-Designed Customised Guitar; Lecturer in Jazz, Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music

John King (completed 2015), Topic: Rhythmic Interaction Design for Electronic Music: multitouch technologies, affordances, embodied image schemas and performance practice; Lecturer in Music Technology and Production at Dundalk Institute of Technology (2015–16);  Developer and R&D at Sensum Ltd, Belfast (2016–17); Qualcommm (2018–present)

Brendan McCloskey (completed 2014), Topic: Accessible, Inclusive Design of Digital Musical Instrument (DMI)/Performance Systems for Musicians with Cerebral Palsy. Awards:shortlisted for the OHMI/Ars Electronica Prize 2013 and semi–finalist in Georgia Tech 2014 Margaret Guthman Prize.

Ricky Graham (completed 2012), Topic: The Expansion of Electronic Guitar Performance through the Development of Interactive Digital Music Systems; Assistant Professor of Music and Technology, Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ, USA (2012–2017); currently founder and CEO at Delta Sound Labs, USA

Teaching Interests and Experience

Brian currently teaches on the BSc Creative Audio and BMus.

He was awarded the SFHEA (Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy) in 2022, with case studies around arts-technology pedagogies and creating a supportive research culture for PhD students in Music, Drama, Film/Screen and Heritage. 

He was awarded the FHEA (Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy) in 2016 for work on arts-technology pedagogy and supporting students from different disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives as part of his role in establishing the BSc Creative Technologies at Ulster in 2008.

Pedagogical publications include 'Music Theory for Sound Designers' (with Ulster colleague Adam Melvin, published in the Focal Press Foundations in Sound Design series) and a survey chapter on sound spatialisation for Foundations in Sound Design with Adam Melvin and Enda Bates (TCD). 

Current Modules

CRE507 Final Project -theory and context (module coordination and writing skills classes)

CRE506 Final Project -practice (supervision)

CRE334 Acoustics and Cognition (acoustics/psychoacoustics and auditory perception theory and writing/research skills) 

MUS329 Music and Sound Practices (experimental music and modular synthesis, co-taught with Dr Rob Casey)

CRE105 Sound, Technology and Culture (history, cultural theory and writing/research skills)

CRE129 Music Creation (music theory and practices through electronic music tools)