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. Donnacha is also a lecturer in music composition at Trinity College Dublin.
He has received commissions from WNYC New York (for the Bang On A Can All-Stars), Dawn Upshaw, Electra, the Fidelio Trio, Icebreaker, Joanna MacGregor, Lisa Moore, 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, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Tate Ensemble 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. Enjoying collaborations, he has worked 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, 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 Crane (2009) for the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, As An Nós (2009) for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Stamp (2008) for the Smith Quartet, 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.
Upcoming premieres for 2010 include a commission from Dawn Upshaw that will be premiered by her and the Crash Ensemble in the Autumn of 2010. Forthcoming recordings include releases from Nonesuch and Canteloupe Records. Donnacha's first full-length album, 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”.