Arnau Brichs began his musical studies in jazz with Chano Domínguez and in classical piano at the Intitut Escola Artístic Oriol Martorell in Barcelona. He later continued his education at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied with Rubens Askenar and Helen Grime, supported by a scholarship from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. He graduated with honors in 2022.

His music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles such as the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, Uusinta Ensemble, Bent Frequency, Locrian Chamber Players, Camerata Eduard Toldrà, and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra. Also active as a pianist, Brichs has appeared at the Ateneu Barcelonès, the Joan Miró Foundation, CaixaForum Barcelona, UTOPIA 46, and the Cadaqués International Music Festival.

To complement his acoustic writing, Brichs develops his own electronic tools, which he makes publicly available. He works with modular synthesizers and custom-designed software that enables real-time manipulation of recorded instrumental sounds. His research, which is centered on sound perception and transformation, explores various forms of alteration: for example, the use of autotune on soprano Amy Petrongelli’s voice in Supra temps amalgamat (2023); invisible electronics; and auditory deepfakes, in which electronic sounds faithfully replicate and extend acoustic sources over time, as in Supra calculated will (2021–2023) and Jeux invisibles (Invisible Games, 2025).

A key concept in his work is the “presences of sound” — the manipulation of a sound’s dynamics and spatial directionality. Its presence may be intimate (soft and direct), distant (loud and indirect), diffuse (soft and indirect), or close (loud and direct). Brichs drew on these concepts in composing Degrees of Presence (2024).

Brichs is a cofounder of polsfura, a label dedicated to electroacoustic and experimental electronic music.

He is a recipient of the Promising Young Composers Competition Award from the Warren County Summer Music School (2019) and the Eric Coates Prize (2021) for Crim perfecte. In 2024, he won the Prix Élan — an international orchestral composition competition — by unanimous jury decision. As part of the prize, he received a commission. He is composer-in-residence at IRCAM for the 2024-2025 season, where he is working on Jeux invisibles, a concerto for oboe and orchestra, set to premiere at the 2025 ManiFeste festival.

He is currently writing his first opera, commissioned by the Gran Teatre del Liceu.