Michael McGlynn was born in Dublin in 1964. His harmonic language combines elements of traditional Irish music such as modal melodic lines and ornamentation, fixed and shifting drones and jazz-tinged chordal clusters. These features can be heard in his contribution to the Chanticleer commissioned “And on Earth Peace : A Chanticleer Mass”. Michael contributed the “Agnus Dei” (2007) to this multi-composer work.

His best-known choral work is “Dúlamán” (1995), a setting of the traditional Irish poem of the same name. This work has been performed and recorded extensively. It features another characteristic aspect of his musical language in its use of multiple alternating rhythms.

Michael McGlynn’s music has been recorded and performed by such internationally recognised vocal ensembles as Rajaton, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, The Dale Warland Singers, Conspirare, the BBC Singers, the Phoenix Chorale and Chanticleer.

In 1987 he founded the Irish choral group Anúna. Anúna have released fourteen albums, almost exclusively featuring his arrangements and original works. Three of these, "Anúna" 1993, "Celtic Origins" 2007 and "Christmas Memories" 2008, have featured in the US Billboard Charts while “Deep Dead Blue” was nominated for a Classical Brit Award in 2000 and went top five in the UK Classical Charts.

Although best known as a writer of choral music, Michael McGlynn has written orchestral and instrumental work. “Behind the Closed Eye”, written for the Ulster Orchestra has been highly successful as a CD release, and in 2009 the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra presented an entire evening of Michael's orchestral output at Dublin's National Concert Hall. "Visions" for saxophone and piano has also been successful.

Michael is much in demand as a vocal coach, specialising in work with choral groups. He has led workshops and coaching sessions for singers in Japan [2009], the USA [including visiting the University of Miami in 2010], and was a guest-judge and vocal advisor on Finland's version of the X Factor in 2010. This July he stewarded the highly successful first Anúna International Summer School at Dublin's National Concert Hall. He will adjudicate at the International Early Music Vocal Competition Canticum Gaudium in Poznań, Poland in November 2011.

Michael has been awarded the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar position in the Performing Arts, and will visit the Department of Music at Florida Atlantic University in October 2011, March 2012 and during the Autumn of 2012. He will lecture, workshop and conduct Masterclasses of his music for the university orchestral and choral ensembles. Works to be performed during his tenure will include the first performance in its entirety of the “Celtic Mass” for orchestra and choir and "Evocations" for women's choir and orchestra. The position includes the commissioning of a new work which will be premiered in Autumn 2012.

He is a film-maker, with his debut self produced and directed film "Invocations of Ireland" being broadcast across Australia and New Zealand in 2010 on the Ovation Channel, and released on DVD in Australia [DV1] and Japan [Columbia]. He has produced all fifteen Anúna albums. He lives in Dublin with his family where his interests include sea swimming, horse riding and procrastination.