Biography

Mark Dougherty BMus Composer & Musical Director

Mark Dougherty is an experienced composer, arranger and Musical Director who is based in London and Belfast. He was Musical Director for Riverdance for five years from 2000 touring all over Europe and Asia and seeing world premieres in Italy, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and China, where the show played in The Great Hall of the People in the presence of the Irish President. His original works include Dracula (2014), touring UK 2015; Pride and Prejudice: The Musical (2013), touring China 2015; Comedy of Errors (2013); Promised Land a large scale opera (2006); and Kentish Tales and Castle Rackrent (2008). BBC commissions include...Dance for the Camera, Traditional Sounds, and The Homecoming - all featuring a variety of Irish and Scottish traditional instruments. Other works include Jazz Suites and TV themes. He conducted the cast and orchestra of Les Miserables in a series of sell-out concerts across the UK, and the Ulster Orchestra in several of his own works including The Belfast Carmen and With One Voice a seventy minute piece which featured a choir of one thousand. He has worked with a variety of artists including Van Morrison, John Barrowman, Suzi Quatro, Johnny Mathis and Howard Keel, and has conducted and played many musicals including UK tours of West Side Story, 42nd Street and Cabaret, premiered On Eagle's Wing, an epic tale of the Scots Irish, in the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, and more recently (2008), toured America on a fifty city tour with Celtic Thunder, with nightly audiences averaging 7,500. Mark has produced numerous CDs for various artists including Broadway and Beyond for Curb Records, and co produced a record with veteran country music star Don Williams, in Nashville. He scored and produced the cast album of the musical Dancing Shoes (2011), about the footballer George Best. DVD credits include Riverdance - Live in Geneva and On Eagle's Wing. 2015 sees Mark working on The Chosen Room, a musical about Internet chat rooms and identity theft, with Belfast playwright Marie Jones (Stones in His Pockets, Women on the Verge of HRT) He graduated from The Queen's University of Belfast, where he studied composition with Kevin Volans.
- IMDb mini biography by: MD