Donnacha Dennehy

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Donnacha Dennehy was born in Dublin on August 17th, 1970.

He studied Music at Trinity College, Dublin and later at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Upon returning to Dublin he founded the Crash Ensemble in 1997, an ensemble of young players performing minimalist music and pieces incorporating electronics and multimedia.

His first work for the group, Junk Box Fraud, was a breakthrough in his output and marked a new style in Irish contemporary music. Subsequent works for the ensemble have included Derailed, For Herbert Brun and most recently Grá Agus Bás, the latter featuring the Irish vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird, premiered in February 2007.

Dennehy's music could be classified as post-minimalist and features energetic rhythms, hard-edged sounds (both acoustic and electronic) and an infectious sense of melody. Major works include pAt for piano and tape, the ensemble works Glamour Sleeper and Streetwalker and, for orchestra, The Vandal, O , and the violin concerto Elastic Harmonic. His 2005 work for chorus and orchestra, Hive, displays his developing interest in microtones and harmonies based on harmonic spectra. These works have established his reputation as one of the leading Irish composers of his generation.

His music has been called "viscerally thrilling" (New York Times), "most spectacular" (De Volkskrant, Amsterdam), "gripping" (Journal of Music in Ireland), and a "love-affair with the very anatomy of sound" (Times, London). NMC Records in London is releasing the first portrait CD devoted to his music, Elastic Harmonic (NMC D133), in June 2007.

He teaches music technology at Trinity College, Dublin and is a member of Aosdána, Ireland's state-sponsored academy of artists.

Dennehy is married to Sophie Elbrick. They have one son, Milo (born 6th November 2003).