Omar Zatriqi (b. 1987) is a composer from Bangor, County Down. He studied composition under Prof. Piers Hellawell and Dr. Simon Mawhinney at Queen's University Belfast, achieving a BMus (with First Class Honours), MA, and PhD.
In January 2012, Omar received invaluable guidance from the current Master of the King's Music Judith Weir when composing Science, a chamber opera written for a predominantly juvenile audience. The work premiered at the Belfast Children's Festival in March 2012 and subsequently won a Director's Choice Award as part of Boston Metro Opera's 2013 International Composers' Competition.
In March 2018, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble awarded Omar's instrumental quintet Fata Morgana first prize at the third annual Peter Rosser Composition Competition. The following month, Key Chain was one of four winning string quartets selected by composer Deirdre Gribbin for West Cork Music's 2018 Composition Competition; its premiere was given by the Halcyon Quartet in Bantry later that summer. In response to their 2020 international call for scores, HRSE chose his instrumental sextet The Scrying to feature at the Sonorities Music Festival in QUB.
During the summer of 2021, Omar proposed the creation of a piece in which the similarities and differences between two vastly distant folk idioms could be explored; HRSE facilitated the realisation of this ambition by awarding him a commission with funds from the PRS Foundation. In addition to reflecting Omar's own Albanian/Scottish heritage, the resultant string duo Blood Dances functions as a broader commentary on the fundamental benefits of societal integration and multiculturalism.
Omar Zatriqi
