Arnau Brichs is a composer and pianist from Barcelona whose music comes alive on stage, blending acoustic instruments and electronics to create dramatic, emotional, and surprising moments.

Music has been woven into his life since early childhood. By the age of two, he was already exploring a toy cassette recorder—plugging in cables, imagining sounds, and building make-believe stages. He would spend long hours at his grandmother’s piano, coming up with melodies and songs.

He started on drums before moving to piano, guided early by jazz mentors Chano Domínguez and Marina Albero, while also studying classical music at the IEA Oriol Martorell school in Barcelona.

As a teenager, Brichs moved to London to study at the Purcell School of Music, and later at the Royal Academy of Music, supported by a full ABRSM scholarship. Beyond formal study, he learned through collaboration and trial and error—testing ideas that sometimes failed, developing his own software, and listening widely. Opera, musical theatre, and psychedelic rock all helped shape his understanding of music’s expressive possibilities. He graduated with first-class honours in 2022.

Returning to Barcelona during the COVID-19 pandemic, Brichs was confronted by the sudden absence of live music. In that isolation, he began composing Sketches of Presence, a set of orchestral fragments born from a desire to reclaim attention, emotional connection, and a sense of presence through sound. These fragments later evolved into Degrees of Presence. Its premiere in Paris in June 2024 by the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France brought immediate recognition: the work was awarded the PRIX ÉLAN, with unanimous and strong acclaim from orchestra, jury, and audience.

Subsequent distinctions, including the Roche Young Commissions at the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland) and Bent Frequency’s Underscore Commission (Atlanta, USA), have marked Brichs’ growing presence on the international stage. 

In his solo practice, Brichs places the piano in dialogue with modular synthesizers and analogue equipment, transforming and layering sound in real time on stage. He has presented these works as intimate, interactive live experiences at venues such as the Fundació Joan Miró, Ateneu Barcelonès, CaixaForum Barcelona, UTOPIA 46, and the International Music Festival of Cadaqués.

His music has been championed by ensembles and orchestras worldwide, including the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France ONDIF (Paris), Uusinta Ensemble (Finland), Ensemble Recherche (Germany), Bent Frequency (Atlanta, USA), Locrian Chamber Players (New York City), Vertixe Sonora (Galicia), Camerata Eduard Toldrà (Catalonia), and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (Switzerland).

In 2024–25, Brichs relocated to Paris as Composer in Residence at IRCAM, situated beside the Centre Pompidou. There, he created Invisible Games, in collaboration with oboist Luca Mariani, a work where the symphonic orchestra and electronic sounds weave together—a composition he had long dreamed of bringing to life.

Current projects include a short opera, created in collaboration with the renowned poet Pol Guasch and stage director Marc Salicrú, commissioned by the Gran Teatre del Liceu, set to premiere in July 2026. He is also collaborating with Morphosis Ensemble on a new project supported by a grant from the Generalitat de Catalunya, and an artistic residency at Fabra i Coats. Additionally, Brichs will premiere a work as part of the Roche Young Commissions for symphonic orchestra at the Lucerne Festival in 2027.