Glen Hansard To Receive Oscar Wilde Award 2017

Irish singer, songwriter, band leader and performer Glen Hansard will be honoured by the US-Ireland Alliance at the 12th annual Oscar Wilde Awards, which are scheduled to take place on 23 February, 2017. The event will again be held at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company's premises in Santa Monica. Legendary for his brilliant live performances, Hansard will also perform at the popular Irish Oscar week party. Abrams will emcee the event.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won a 2007 Academy Award for Best Song with the wonderful 'Falling Slowly’, featured in the John Carney-directed film, Once. The pair also starred in the film. Hansard was also producer, composer and lyricist for the musical stage adaptation of the film, which hit the stage in 2012. Written by Enda Walsh, the Broadway show received eleven Tony Award nominations and won eight, including for Best Musical. It also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical and the 2013 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.

“We are thrilled,” Trina Vargo, President of the US-Ireland Alliance said, "to be honouring Glen in February. Our guests well remember the incredible, impromptu performance Glen and Marketa gave at our 2008 event, days before they won the Academy Award. We also honoured James L. Brooks that year, which led him to make a special episode of the The Simpsons about an Irish pub. Jim asked Glen to voice a role in that episode.”

Glen Hansard began his career as a busker on the streets of Dublin – a role which was celebrated in Once. He formed his own band, The Frames, in 1990 and they went on to become one of the most revered Irish bands of all time. He also appeared in the 1991 Alan Parker, BAFTA-winning film, The Commitments, as the character Outspan. In addition to delivering many albums with the The Frames, including the magnificent, self-released breakthrough For The Birds, as The Swell Season, Hansard and Irglova released the eponymous album The Swell Season, as well as the Once soundtrack, and finally Strict Joy in 2009.

Hansard has toured and/or performed with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Ed Sheeran and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, among others. His solo albums include Rhythm and Repose and last year's superb Didn’t He Ramble, which received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Folk Album. His songs have been featured in the soundtracks of The Odd Life of Timothy Green and The Hunger Games. He recorded a version of Bob Dylan's 'You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere' for the 2007 film I’m Not There.

The US-Ireland Alliance is known for its George J. Mitchell Scholarship program, one of the most prestigious programs in the US. It sends future American leaders to Ireland for a year of study. The Oscar Wilde Awards was created to bring people together in the US and Ireland, in the hope that creative and business collaborations would result. The event’s biggest success can be seen in the final scene of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which Abrams’ filmed on Skellig Michael, off the west coast of Ireland. Tourism Ireland projects that the film will mean about $4 billion for Ireland – and the Skellig area was recently named by The Lonely Planet as a top ten destination for 2017.