Brian Peter George Eno (/ˈiːnoʊ/ born 15 May 1948) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambient music and electronica, and for producing, recording, and writing works in rock and pop music. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unconventional concepts and approaches to contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures. In 2019, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.

Born in Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at the art school of Ipswich Civic College in the mid-1960s, and then at Winchester School of Art. He joined the glam rock group Roxy Music as its synthesiser player in 1971 and recorded two albums with them before departing in 1973. He then released solo albums, beginning with the rock-oriented Here Come the Warm Jets (1974), and explored minimal music on the influential recordings Discreet Music (1975) and Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), with the latter coining the term "ambient music".

Alongside his solo work, Eno collaborated frequently with other musicians in the 1970s, including Robert Wyatt, Robert Fripp (as part of the duo Fripp & Eno), Harmonia, Cluster, Harold Budd, David Bowie, and David Byrne. He also established himself as a sought-after producer, working on albums by John Cale, Jon Hassell, Laraaji, Talking Heads, Ultravox, and Devo, as well as the no wave compilation No New York (1978). In subsequent decades, Eno continued to record solo albums and produce for other artists, including U2, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel, Daniel Lanois, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, Slowdive, Karl Hyde, James, Kevin Shields, and Damon Albarn.

Dating back to his time as a student, Eno has also worked in other media, including sound installations, film and writing. In the mid-1970s, he co-developed Oblique Strategies, a pack of cards featuring aphorisms intended to spur creative thinking. From the 1970s onwards, his installations have included the sails of the Sydney Opera House in 2009 and the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank in 2016. An advocate of a range of humanitarian causes, Eno writes on a variety of subjects and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation. His modern political activism has also included awareness of the conditions in the Gaza Strip before and during the Gaza war, climate crisis awareness, opposing the UK Conservative Party, opposing Brexit, and advocating for freedom for Julian Assange. In September 2025, he signed an open pledge with Film Workers for Palestine pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions "that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people."

Brian Peter George Eno was born on 15 May 1948 in the village of Melton, Suffolk, England, the son of William Arnold Eno (1916–1988), a postal worker and clock and watch repairer, and Maria Alphonsine (née Buslot; 1922–2005), a Belgian national. His grandfather was a multi-instrumentalist who played the saxophone and bassoon whilst he built and repaired pianos and church organs. Eno is the eldest of three children; he has a brother, Roger, and sister Arlette. They have a half-sister, Rita, from their mother's previous relationship. The surname Eno is derived from the Huguenot surname Hennot. Along with the rest of the family, in particular the parents, he was raised Catholic.

I like melancholy and have never found it to be the same thing as moroseness or sadness. I've always enjoyed being melancholy, perhaps because that mood is very much a feature of the environment where I grew up. It's a very bleak place and most visitors find it quite miserable. I don't think it's miserable but it's definitely a sort of lost place in a lost time – nothing has changed in this part of England for many hundreds of years.

— Brian Eno

In 1959, Eno attended St Joseph's College, Ipswich, a Catholic grammar school of the De La Salle Brothers order. His confirmation name is taken from the founder of the De La Salle Brothers, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, giving "Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno". During this time, he had begun to listen to American R&B, blues and doo wop artists; he specifically cited the Lafayettes, Don and Juan, the Silhouettes and Little Richard as being key American musical figures within this period. He was also inspired by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, whom he had first discovered whilst staying with Carl Otto Eno, his uncle, at his residence where he would collect pieces of art.