Donnacha Dennehy | pl

Donnacha Dennehy is a composer living in Dublin. Born in 1970, he studied music composition with Hormoz Farhat at Trinity College Dublin and at the University of Illinois, USA, where his main teachers were Salvatore Martirano and William Brooks. He pursued further studies in electronic music at the Hague, and at IRCAM, Paris. Returning to Ireland, he founded the Crash Ensemble, Dublin's now-renowned amplified new music band, in 1997. Among the pieces premiered in Crash's first concert was a piece that Donnacha specially wrote for the group called 'Junk Box Fraud'. This in many ways marked a significant shift in his compositional style. Apart from being artistic director of Crash, Donnacha is also a teacher of music technology and composition at Trinity College Dublin.

He has received commissions from WNYC (Public Radio New York), RTE, Amsterdam Funds Voor der Kunst, BBC, the Arts Councils of both England and Ireland, and from many individual ensembles. Noted performers of his work include Bang On A Can All-Stars, Crash Ensemble, Electra, Ensemble Integrales, Fidelio Trio, Jenny Lin, London Sinfonietta, Joanna MacGregor, Lisa Moore, National Symphony Orchestra, Orkest de Volharding, Percussion Group of the Hague, Prism Saxophone Quartet, Smith Quartet and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players among many others. He has also enjoyed collaborations with artists working in video and dance, for instance with the choreographers Yoshiko Chuma and Shobana Jeyasingh.

His work has been featured in festivals such as ISCM World Music Days, Bang On A Can in New York, WNYC’s New Sounds Live, Sonic Evolutions Festival at Lincoln Center, EXPO, the Ultima Festival in Oslo, Fuse Leeds, the Saarbrucken Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Gaudeamus Festival in Amsterdam, and State of the Nation at the South Bank in London.

Recent premieres include Stamp (to avoid erotic thoughts) for the Smith Quartet, ‘Stainless Staining’ (2006-7) for the New York based pianist, Lisa Moore, and ‘Grá Agus Bás’ (2006-7) for the Crash Ensemble and the sean nós singer, Iarla O’ Lionáird, which was described by the New York Times as a “magnificently energetic” vocal work, given a "powerful account" by the Crash Ensemble.

Donnacha's first full-length album, Elastic Harmonic, was released on NMC in June 2007. .