Glen Hansard, Oscar-Winning Irish Musician, Dies at 56

Irish singer-songwriter and actor Glen Hansard has died at the age of 56, following a motorbike crash in Dublin on Wednesday. The musician — best known as the frontman of rock band The Frames and for his Oscar-winning role in the 2006 film Once — had been performing in a traditional music session just hours before the fatal accident.

From Ballymun streets to the Academy stage

Hansard grew up in Ballymun, one of Dublin's most economically deprived areas in the 1980s. He left school at 13 and found his calling through music after listening to a Bob Dylan cassette given to him by a friend. "I listened to Bob Dylan and everything, like my whole world just went into the opposite — flipped," he once recalled. He formed The Frames and signed his first record deal in 1990, the same year he joined the cast of Alan Parker's The Commitments.

His film career began almost by accident: accompanying a friend to an audition, he was asked to read for a part on the spot and was cast as guitarist Outspan Foster. The Commitments remains one of the most celebrated Irish films of all time.

The song that won the world over

His second and most celebrated film came in John Carney's Once (2006), in which he starred alongside Czech musician Markéta Irglová. The film's song "Falling Slowly" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008, making Hansard and Irglová one of the most unlikely and beloved Oscar winners in the ceremony's history.

Tributes from across the music world

Since news of his death broke, tributes have poured in from Bono, Bruce Springsteen, and musicians from across the world. Friends and fans described him as not only a uniquely gifted musician but as an exceptionally warm and generous human being who "made every person feel special."

Hansard was 56 years old. He is survived by family and a body of work that changed Irish music forever.