Ceiri Torjussen was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1976. He is a Welsh speaker. He started playing the trumpet and piano at the age of nine, and began composing seriously at the age of seventeen. He gained his Bachelors in composition at the University of York, UK, where he studied with Prof. Nicola Lefanu and David Blake, and his Masters at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where he studied with Dr Jim Hopkins and Dr Stephen Hartke.

In addition to the main canon of western music from the middle ages to the present, his musical interests have included a special love for jazz, and for certain non-western music, especially Indonesian gamelan and Indian classical music, partly resulting from spending seven months in India when he was 19. Ceiri has composed in a wide variety of mediums - for full orchestra, string orchestra, chamber ensembles, songs, jazz groups and electronic music, in addition to some unusual combinations such as eight flutes. He also has a keen interest in music for the moving image and has recently been orchestrating on studio feature films for the composer Marco Beltrami.

In 1998 he was awarded a William J. Fulbright Scholarship to study composition in the US at the University of Southern California. This, in addition to scholarships from the British Arts Council, S4C, the Welsh American Foundation, and a Teaching Assistantship position, allowed him to go to USC where he studied with the noted American composer Stephen Hartke. Ceiri has also won the Composers’ Medal at the Urdd National Eisteddfod three times, and been the recipient of the Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Arrangers award, as well as many other awards for his jazz playing. He won the Composers Medal at the Welsh National Eisteddfod in 1999 which made him the official ‘Head Composer’ of Wales. In August 2000 he was made a ‘White Druid of the Island of Britain’ for his services to Welsh music, and has been the subject of a documentary on S4C. Other recent awards include the Hans Salter Award for his outstanding compositions, given by the USC Thornton School of Music, and the SCI/ASCAP award (US) for his chamber ensemble piece, L.A. Stories. The third of his Three Welsh Folksongs for solo piano was performed at the Wigmore hall in February 2001 by Iwan Llewlyn Jones, and has recently been recorded for a CD release.

His orchestral work, Momentum, has been performed widely, notably by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and been broadcast on national radio and television. He will be undertaking two new commissions for the orchestra: one for the Vale of Glamorgan Festival in September 2001 and another for their 2002/03 concert season. He has been commissioned to write a work for harp and electronics, for harpist Elinor Bennett, for performance in the North Wales Music Festival, September 2001. He has also been commissioned a song to be sung by the Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams, and a work for percussion ensemble, both to be premiered in 2002.

Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Awards: Best Jazz Combo Award (1992).

Two-time winner of the Daily Telegraph Best Jazz Arranger Award (1993, 1994).

PRS Scholarship to study music for Film/TV/Video at the Dartington International Summer School, UK (1997).

Three-time winner of the Composer’s Medal at the Urdd Eisteddfod. (1995-‘98).

US/UK Fulbright Scholarship for study at USC School of Music (1998/99).

S4C Scholarship for graduate study (1998/1999).

Welsh Arts Council Scholarship (1998).

Welsh-American Foundation Scholarship (1998).

Winner of the Composers’ Medal at the National Eisteddfod in Anglesey (1999).

Awarded a Pat Williams Scholarship to study composition at the Henry Mancini Institute at UCLA (1999)