Composer & Sound Designer
HK Ní Shioradáin is a multi-disciplinary artist from Dublin, Ireland. They compose, music direct, and sound design for film, theatre, musical theatre, radio, and bands. They have a broad musical background in free improv, jazz, film music, traditional Irish, folk, musical theatre, and contemporary styles.
They have worked on large scale installation events, festivals, and platforms at home and abroad such as RTÉ TV and Radio, Virgin Media, Slane Castle, Dublin Theatre Festival, Galway International Arts Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, Dublin International Film Festival, Longitude Festival, and more. They are resident sound designer at Lemon Soap Productions, praised as the Best New Theatre Company of 2024, while HK was listed as Best Soundscape on Chris McCormack’s Best of Theatre 2024 for their score for Grace (Graffiti Theatre).
They developed their practice on many notable programmes such as Rough Magic SEEDS, Vital Sparks in the UK, Axis Assemble, Baboró Festival Mentoring, ADI Mentoring, and Artist in the Community Mentoring. They are currently an artist partner on the UCD Improvisation Across Boundaries research project for women and gender minorities in improvised music, and recently participated with the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Perspectives Programme.
In recent years, they have been the recipient of DLR’s Emerging Artist Award, ADI New Work Award, Arts Council Agility Award and Project Award, Mountains to the Sea Bursary, Limerick Theatre Bursary, and SDCC Incubation Award. They were shortlisted for the Finding A Voice Composers Competition in 2023-2025.
They have a BA in English Literature and Film Studies from Trinity College Dublin, which is crucial to their film scoring and lyric writing, and a Certificate in Music Composition for Games from Griffith College Dublin with Pulse College.
Writer & Lyricist
They are a bilingual writer and lyricist, writing in Irish and English. Their latest musical Beards was described by the Irish Independent as “an absolute breath of fresh air and a hoot from start to finish” and by the Arts Review as “a show of such hilarious, unholy irreverence it’s practically spiritual”.
They were selected for Céadlínte Éigse Éireann/Poetry Ireland Introductions 2022. They won the Máire Mac an tSaoi Award 2022 for their poetry. They have performed at event such as the International Literature Festival Dublin, Dublin Book Festival, Push Forward Festival. They have been published in Poetry Ireland, Lampa ar Lasadh, Pride Poets Anthology, Aneas, Wild Whispers, the Outpost, and placed in competitions Féile Raiftéirí, Cathalbuí, and Comórtas Filíochta Leabharlainne Átha Cliath Theas.
Community Artist
They completed the Music Graduate Programme with Music and Healthcare Ireland (pictured at Tallaght Hospital) to train to become a musician in healthcare. This has provided them with valuable skills in community arts participation. They were selected for the Art Council’s Artist in the Community Award where they partnered with AsIAm to explore musical composition with the Autistic community. They have experience facilitating, teaching, music directing, and have taught music to children, teenagers, and adults at the Independent Theatre Workshop, St Agnes CCMA, and Rosary College.
They founded and ran The Film Scene for filmmakers to networking and screen their films in 2018-20. They ran every aspect from hosting the Q&A sessions, social media, event planning, and curating the programme each month. During the pandemic, they curated an audio-visual sister publication, called The Film Zine. This publication was nominated for Best Magazine Layout and Design at the SMEDIAS 2021.
They were selected as one of the curators for the Lasta Festival for the Pavilion Theatre in 2021.
During their time in Trinity College Dublin, they were chairperson of TCD Jazz Society.
