Sun 8 Feb 2026,
8pm Book tickets
8pm Book tickets
Tickets on sale 10am, Friday 31st
| Date | Sun 8 Feb 2026, 8pm |
|---|---|
| Location | Hawk's Well Theatre |
| Price | €35/17.50u18s (plus booking fees) |
Pilgrims
Paul Noonan & Brian Crosby
PAUL NOONAN AND BRIAN CROSBY LAUNCH NEW PROJECT AS ‘PILGRIMS’!
Paul Noonan and Brian Crosby - two musicians whose creative paths first intertwined in their school days - have reunited under a new name: Pilgrims. Their debut single Bright & Bold is available now, with a full album set for release on 30th January 2026. The duo will take the project on the road early next year, with tour dates going on sale this Friday.
Noonan and Crosby first formed Juniper (with Damien Rice) before becoming founding members of Irish indie band Bell X1. In the years since, both have developed singular careers: Noonan through Bell X1 and other projects Printer Clips and HousePlants (with electronic producer Daithí), and Crosby via acclaimed film and television scores and his solo piano and ambient work. Pilgrims marks their first creative collaboration in 16 years.
On coming full circle to work on a musical project together again, Paul Noonan says:
“Since reconnecting on My Bones a Scaffold last year, we’ve been working on a bunch of songs that sprung from new instrumental pieces by Brian, or songs that I had sketches for. Colouring them in together. Coming from a more classical or cinematic well, Brian takes the kinds of harmonic journeys that I just don’t, and the songs are all the richer for it.
We did some shows together last April, and played some of these new things. It was there that Pilgrims was formed, in its purist form just piano and vocal. Not torch songs as such, but somewhat similar in their yearning, theatrical sentimentality.
In those small beautiful rooms, it took actually playing the songs for people, feeling that connection and inhabiting the characters for it to feel like it had its own heart and lungs.
The recordings are a little more embellished, though often we would add things and take them away - feeling that we knew what this thing isn’t, happy to be a little fuzzy on what it is.”
Brian Crosby is a piano player, composer and performer who releases his own piano & ambient music and collaborates with film makers & artists on a variety of audio visual & installation projects.
He was a founding member of Bell X1, a central collaborator of the Starboard Home project and the creator of The Cake Sale - an eclectic collective of artists such as Paul Noonan (Bell X1), Lisa Hannigan, Gary Lighbody (Snowpatrol), Nina Persson (The Cardigans), Glen Hansard and Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) - formed to raise funds for the charity Oxfam.
He spent 10 years in Berlin where he converted a 3,500 square ft factory floor in Kreuzberg into a modular studio with nine rooms. The facility rapidly became a well-loved hub for a thriving film music scene and it was here that he collaborated with fellow studio residents Dustin O’Halloran, Hildur Guōnadóttir, and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson on numerous Film and TV scores.
Brian is now based in rural County Wicklow, Ireland where he has built and works out of Treehouse Studios – a purpose built recording space filled with an array of pianos and vintage instruments set in the native Irish woodland that surrounds his home. From here he recorded and released his first solo piano record Imbrium in the Spring of 2021, a work exploring the stillness of life suspended while the world was in lockdown.
Brian is currently writing and recording again with longtime friend and collaborator Paul Noonan under the name Pilgrims. They released their debut single My Bones A Scaffold late last year and have since been working on a collection of new material set for release in early 2026.Outside music, Brian is a certified Holotropic Breathwork facilitator, a therapeutic practise using breath and music to achieve expanded states of consciousness enabling psychological and emotional transformation, and regularly holds workshops in Ireland and around Europe.
Paul Noonan is a songwriter, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the frontman of the Irish group Bell X1.
Paul also performs as a solo artist and collaborator on a variety of musical projects - Printer Clips, a record of simply recorded duets with the likes of Joan As Policewoman, Martha Wainwright, & Lisa Hannigan and more recently HousePlants, with the electronic musician Daithí.
Pilgrims is the latest music-making project, with long-time friend and original Bell X1 member Brian Crosby.
From humble childhood beginnings as second flautist in the Lucan Concert Band (Yup!), Paul has made many records with the above and others, including three Irish number 1s, and has been nominated for the Choice Music Prize five times. A keen and natural collaborator, he curated and directed the Starboard Home and Imagining Ireland projects in association with The National Concert Hall in Dublin.
Between these collaborations, Paul Noonan has been performing intimate solo shows around Ireland, playing songs from across the body of work that he has created over the past 25 years, as well as collaborative concerts as a trio with Lisa Hannigan and Gemma Hayes.
He’s also a qualified and practicing music therapist, working with older adults living with dementia, people with disorders of consciousness, and with children in areas of social disadvantage.
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