Talented musician Usna MacErlane from Belcoo, Co. Fermanagh, is steadily making a name for himself in the music world.

Recently his compositional skills were noticed by the independent film company ‘Crude Studios,’ who commissioned him to write a piece of music for their short film. Usna explained: “I was approached by Ciaran Crudden from Crude Studios after he heard a composition of mine on Facebook. It involved expanding my piano composition for piano, strings and timpani. The film is titled "Pianist in a Brothel" and has not yet been released but there is a short trailer on Vimeo. The film is complete from what I understand but I have not seen the final edit yet. From what I've seen so far, it looks like a really well produced film that I encourage everyone to support.”

Usna’s interest in music started at nine years old, when he received a guitar as a Christmas present. “I initially only wanted one because I thought it would make me cool but I ended up actually enjoying it a lot,” he said. “My family did not play instruments growing up but my mum always wanted me to listen to music from a young age so I grew up listening to anything from Debussy to David Bowie.”

With piano as his specialist study instrument, Usna, who is now 20 years old, is currently studying Classical Music at Leeds College of Music. “Piano would be my favourite instrument for sure,” said Usna, who started playing the instrument when he was 16 years old. “As soon as I started it, I could not stop and it is something I have made a lot of progress in, which I am very proud of.”

Alongside his classical music training, Usna has been developing new music which he describes as being "mainly hip-hop style.”

“My new music is a large contrast to my classical background,” he said. “I focus on having pretty chords, with good beats and catchy melodies. I initially wanted to keep it very 'chilled-out' but I realised that if it was going to be 'my' music that I had to go into different parts of me, so there are chilled songs, crazier songs, and songs that are just for fun!”

Talking of his plans for the new year, Usna said: “In 2019 I'm hoping to do a performance of my new music as I aim to have my album completed by the summer. I hope to have a larger following for my music as well. My recent release on Spotify gained over 100 plays the first day it released, which doesn't sound like much, but to me it was a good success as I expected 10 plays at most.”

He added: “This has motivated me a lot because it shows me that some people like my music.”

To stay updated on Usna’s music, check out his Facebook and Spotify pages.