Flautist · Composer · Arranger · Conductor · Educator
Tom
Doorley
Music rooted in tradition, shaped through performance, composition and storytelling.
Current feature
Belfast · 2026
A musical journey through Belfast in which the River Lagan becomes a witness to the city — carrying music, memory, migration, industry, loss and shared experience.
Composed, arranged and conducted by Tom Doorley with the National Folk Orchestra of Ireland.
Enter the storyMusic · People · Place
Music can carry more than melody.
It can carry the memory of a place, the people who shaped it and the stories they leave behind.
Much of Tom’s orchestral work begins with a place — a river, a city, a county, a building — and the music through which human experience survives.
Selected work
Works & Stories
A life in music
One musical language, many expressions.
Tom’s musical life has developed between two closely connected worlds: the lived tradition of Irish music and the possibilities offered by classical performance, composition and orchestral colour.
From international touring and recording with Danú to his later work as composer and conductor with the National Folk Orchestra of Ireland, performance has remained at the heart of his musical thinking.
Read Tom’s story“Tradition is neither fixed nor simply source material. It is a language learned through playing with others.”
Watch / Listen
Performance, orchestral work, recordings and talks.
A small, considered selection from a musical life built through collaboration.
Explore the archive
Talk
Tuned
TEDxUCD · 2013
Work with Tom
Practical guidance, shaped around the musician.
Focused one-to-one work for flute players and composers, grounded in performance experience and the living language of Irish traditional music.
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