Donnacha Dennehy
| Donnacha Dennehy | |
|---|---|
 Donnacha Dennehy at the 2012 Mizzou International Composers Festival | |
| Background information | |
| Born |
17 August 1970 Dublin, Ireland |
| Occupation(s) | Composer |
| Website |
www |
Donnacha Dennehy (born 17 August 1970, Dublin) is an Irish composer. He read music at Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated with a first-class honours degree. He continued his studies in music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), with support from a Fulbright Scholarship, and earned his master's and doctoral degrees at UIUC.[1] His post-doctoral musical period included a stint at IRCAM, with Gérard Grisey, and studies in the Netherlands with Louis Andriessen.
In 1997, Dennehy returned to Dublin, and subsequently co-founded the Crash Ensemble, which focuses on the performance and recording of contemporary music. His works for the Crash Ensemble include Junk Box Fraud, Derailed, and For Herbert Brun. He later returned to Trinity College Dublin as a lecturer in music. His 2005 work for chorus and orchestra, Hive, displays his developing interest in microtones and harmonies based on harmonic spectra. His composition Grá Agus Bás, which was premiered in February 2007, incorporated music from the sean nós tradition and was a collaboration with the Irish vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird.[2] He is a member of Aosdána, Ireland's state-sponsored academy of artists.
NMC Records in London released the first portrait CD devoted to his music, Elastic Harmonic (NMC D133), in June 2007. In the spring of 2011, Nonesuch released an album with Grá Agus Bás and That the Night Come.[3] He is currently collaborating with Dawn Upshaw and the American new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound on The Hunger, an evening-length music theatre piece about the Great Irish Famine.
Dennehy was a visiting scholar at Princeton University from 2012 onwards. He served as composer-in-residence for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in 2013-2014. In the fall of 2014, he joined the faculty of the music department at Princeton University.
Compositions
Orchestra / chamber orchestra
- Junk Box Fraud (1997)
- The Vandal (2000)
- O (2002)
- Elastic Harmonic (2005); violin and orchestra
- Hive (2005); voices and orchestra
- Aisling Gheal (2007); voice and chamber orchestra
- Grá agus Bás (2007); voice and chamber orchestra
- Crane (2009)
- That the Night Come (2010); soprano and chamber orchestra
- If he died, what then (2012); soprano and chamber orchestra
- Disposable Dissonance (2012)
- The Hunger [(parts I - IV) 2013]; soprano and chamber orchestra
- Three Sean Nós Settings (2013); voice and orchestra
- Dirty Light (2013)
- Turn (2014)
Small ensemble with voice
- Two Yeats Songs (1993); soprano and flute
- Hinterlands (2002); two female voices and backing track
- To Herbert Brun (2002); voice, saxophone, trombone, double bass, and live electronics
- The Weathering (2004); soprano, recorder, percussion, violin, and video
- Swift's Epitaph (2008); countertenor and percussion
Instrumental ensemble
- Pluck, Stroke, and Hammer (1997); piano quintet
- The Traces of a Revolutionary Song (1998)
- A Game for Gentlemen Played by Thugs (1999)
- Severance (1999)
- Ecstasis, full stop (1999); string quartet and backing track
- Counting (2000); string quartet and backing track
- Derailed (2000)
- Composition for percussion, loops, blips and flesh (2002); percussion sextet
- Glamour Sleeper (2002)
- Streetwalker (2003)
- The Pale (2003); saxophone quartet and percussion sextet
- The Blotting (2004)
- Table Manners (2004); percussion quartet
- Mild, Medium-Lasting, Artificial Happiness (2004); saxophone quartet or any quartet of like-sounding instruments
- Tilt (2006); electric guitar quartet
- Bulb (2006); piano trio
- Pushpulling (2007); string quartet
- Fold (2008)
- STAMP (2008); string quartet
- As An Nós (2009)
- An Irish Process (2009)
- Céad Slán (One Hundred Goodbyes) (2011); string quartet and backing track
Solo/electroacoustic
- Work for Organ (1992)
- GUBU (1995); tape
- Begobs I-IV (1995); piano
- Metropolis Mutabilis (1995); tape and optional video (by Hugh Reynolds)
- Voitures (1996); oboe and tape
- Curves (1997); amplified harp and tape
- Swerve (1998); flute and tape
- FAT (2000); flute and tape
- Mad, Avid, Sad (2000); organ
- pAt (2001); piano and tape
- [H]interlands (2002); two female voices and tape
- PADDY (2003); percussion
- BRAT (2000/5); recorder and tape (arrangement of FAT)
- North Strand (2007); piano
- North Circular (2007); piano
- Reservoir (2007); piano
- Stainless Staining (2007); piano and backing track
- Overstrung (2010); violin and backing track
- Misterman (2011); music for a play by Enda Walsh
Open ensemble
- Blips and Static (2002); multiple boomboxes
- Flashbulb (2006); three melody instruments and one struck instrument
- A Fatal Optimist (2008); for any instrumentation
Discography
- Elastic Harmonic. NMC, 2007 (includes Glamour Sleeper; Paddy; Junk Box Fraud; Elastic Harmonic, pAt, Streetwalker)
- Grá agus Bás. Nonesuch, 2011
- Stainless Staining. Canteloupe, 2012 (Lisa Moore, piano Stainless Staining; Reservoir)
Notes
- ↑ "Donnacha Dennehy on "Grá Agus Bás: Love and Death"" (Press release). Princeton University, Fund for Irish Studies. 2012. Retrieved 2015-02-05.
- ↑ Vivien Schweitzer (2013-05-20). "A Genre, Old and Irish, Is Renewed". New York Times. Retrieved 2015-02-05.
- ↑ Andrew Clements (2011-05-19). "Dennehy: Grá agus Bás; That the Night Come – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-02-05.
External links
- Official website
- Donnacha Dennehy on Myspace
- New York Times review
- details of Lisa Moore EP recording
- Princeton University page on Donnacha Dennehy
- WQXR 96.3 FM, New York City, Meet the Composer: 'Donnacha Dennehy: I. "Mine is not the standard childhood"'. 26 August 2014
- WQXR 96.3 FM, New York City, Meet the Composer: "Donnacha Dennehy: II. Grisey, Andrissen and Gender Confusion". 26 August 2014
- WQXR 96.3 FM, New York City, Meet the Composer: "Donnacha Dennehy: Composing With Frequency ". 26 August 2014
- NMC Records page on Donnacha Dennehy
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