Born in Dublin in August 1970, Donnacha Dennehy studied music composition with Hormoz Farhat at Trinity College Dublin, and at the University of Illinois, USA, where his main teachers were Salvatore Martirano, Erik Lund and William Brooks. He pursued further studies in electronic music at the Hague, and at IRCAM, Paris. Returning to Ireland to take up a position as lecturer in music composition at Trinity College Dublin, he founded the Crash Ensemble, Dublin's now-renowned new music group, 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'.
He has received commissions from Dawn Upshaw, the Kronos Quartet, WNYC New York (for the Bang On A Can All-Stars), Electra, the Fidelio Trio, Icebreaker, Joanna MacGregor, Lisa Moore, Monica Germino, New Noise London, Isabelle O'Connell, Orkest de Ereprijs, Orkest de Volharding, Percussion Group of the Hague, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, RTE TV (for Elastic Harmonic), Ulster Orchestra (BBC Radio 3), Smith Quartet, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players among others. Other noted performers include the group he founded, Crash Ensemble, Darragh Morgan, Ensemble Intégrales, Jenny Lin, Prism Quartet, Sonic Generator (Atlanta), Tatiana Koleva and the London Sinfonietta. Collaborations include pieces with the choreographers Yoshiko Chuma (To Herbert Brun) and Shobana Jeyasingh, (Hinterlands), and the visual artist John Gerrard (Composition for Percussion, Loops, Blips and Flesh).
His work has featured in festivals such as ISCM World Music Days, Bang On A Can in New York, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, 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 State of the Nation at the South Bank in London and the Gaudeamus Festival in Amsterdam (both Junk Box Fraud and Traces of A Revolutionary Song were shortlisted for the Gaudeamus Prize in 1999).
Recent premieres include That The Night Come (2010) for Dawn Upshaw and the Crash Ensemble, Crane (2009) for the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (which was 'recommended' by the 2010 Unesco International Rostrum of Composers), and As An Nós (2009) for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.
Upcoming commissions include a major new work for the Kronos Quartet. Forthcoming recordings include a full-length album featuring the performers Dawn Upshaw, Iarla O'Lionaird and Crash Ensemble for Nonesuch Records (to be released in 2011). Donnacha's first portrait CD, Elastic Harmonic, was released by NMC Records in London (www.nmcrec.co.uk) in the summer of 2007. The Wire in its review of that disc declared that “Donnacha Dennehy has a soundworld all of his own”.
Biography updated December 2010.