Upcoming Premieres from Dawn Upshaw & the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet

Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra will premiere "If He Died What Then" in St. Paul Minnesota on 10 February.  Stefan Asbury conducts. Kronos Quartet will premiere "One Hundred Goodbyes" at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall on 28 February.

Grá Agus Bás makes end of year lists from NPR to WNYC's New Sounds

Grá Agus Bás is one of NPR Music's Top 50 Albums (in all genres) of 2011. It also features in end of year lists from Alex Ross (The Rest is Noise) and Paul Griffiths.  It made WNYC's New Sounds top ten of the year (both John Schaefer's list and the Listener Poll).

Icebreaker to play Disposable Dissonance in Belgium, and members of Chicago Symphony Orchestra to play To Herbert Brun in Chicago

Icebreaker to perform Disposable Dissonance in Belgium on 30 September, and members of Chicago Symphony Orchestra are to play To Herbert Brun on 17 October in Chicago as part of their Music Now Series

5-star review in the Guardian - and other reviews - for Grá Agus Bás

Grá Agus Bás, Dennehy's debut Nonesuch CD,  gets a 5 star review from Andrew Clements in the Guardian.  Mark Swed in the LA Times calls it rapturous, and Anne Midgette in the  Washington Post describes the title piece as "an ecstatic vision set in a dreamscape of sound".  Edward Ortiz in the Sacramento Bee says it's "easily one of the most bewitching releases of the year", John Fleming in the St. Petersburg Times writes that "Dennehy's score is hauntingly strange, a modern sonic world like no other, but also unusually accessible for new music"  and Daniel Stephen Johnson, writing in the New Haven Advocate declares it to be "absolutely a revelation".  Grá Agus Bás is one of the Editor's Choices in the August 2011 Edition of Gramophone Magazine.

Advance notice, NPR and WNYC features for the Nonesuch album Grá Agus Bás

Grá Agus Bás and That the Night Come are now streaming on NPR's First Listen. Anastasia Tsioulcas in her review for NPR calls it "one of the best and most satisfying listening experiences of the year so far". Elsewhere Norman Lebrecht calls That The Night Come "captivating", and Steve Smith in a review for the New York Times of a recent Carnegie Hall workshop lead by Dawn Upshaw and Donnacha Dennehy refers to the upcoming album as "gorgeous". Interviews about the album are now online at WNYC's Soundcheck and NPR's Weekend Edition.
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Nonesuch Records to release Grá Agus Bás on 3 May

Nonesuch Records have just announced the release date for the first recording of Donnacha Dennehy's  music with the label.  Called Grá Agus Bás, it features that piece of the same name (sung by Iarla O'Lionaird) and That the Night Come (with Dawn Upshaw as the soloist).  Crash Ensemble (conducted by Alan Pierson) perform both works. It is possible to pre-order the disc here.
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New Piece for Dawn Upshaw and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra announced

Am excited to announce that I will be writing a new piece for Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, to be premiered in their 2011/12 season
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Ferbuary 2012

Fidelio Trio feature Bulb (which was originally written for them) in their American tour this February.  See concerts.

January 2011: New Smith Quartet CD features Stamp

The new Smith Quartet CD, based on the idea of Dance, features the premiere recording of Stamp, a piece commissioned by the Smith Quartet in 2008.  Also features pieces by Tan Dun, Michael Nyman, John Adams and Joe Cutler. Release date: January 31, 2011.

Dawn Upshaw with Donnacha Dennehy: Vocal Composition Workshop at Carnegie Hall

Creating and collaborating on new vocal works: a workshop week and performance stewarded by Dawn Upshaw and Donnacha Dennehy at Carnegie Hall in April 2011.

November 2010: UK premiere of Overstrung at Huddersfield Festival

Monica Germino will give the UK premiere of Overstrung (for violin & multitracked retuned violins on soundtrack) at the 2010 Huddersfield Festival

September 2010: Dawn Upshaw Premiere

Dawn Upshaw will premiere That the Night Come, a song cycle for her and Crash Ensemble (cond. Alan Pierson) to texts by W.B. Yeats at IMMA in Dublin on 2 October 2010.  That The Night Come is written especially for Dawn and was commissioned by her with funds provided by the Arts Council of Ireland.

August 2010: Jury Member for Gaudeamus Festival in September

Donnacha is a member of the jury (along with Roderik de Man and Helena Tulve) for the 2010 Gaudeamus Competition in Amsterdam in September. As part of the Gaudeamus Festival, Monica Germino will premiere Overstrung for violin and soundtrack.  Orkest de Ereprijs and Ensemble Lucillin perform other pieces too.

August 2010: Kronos Quartet Commission

Kronos Quartet has commissioned Donnacha to write a substantial piece for them for 2011.  The commission is supported by funds from the Arts Council of Ireland.

Crane for orchestra (2009) recommended by International Rostrum of Composers

Crane for orchestra (2009) was recommended by the 57th International Rostrum of Composers on the 4 June 2010 in Lisbon.

June 2010

Some radio broadcasts online: Interview with John Schaefer on WNYC (May 07 2010); Crash Ensemble in concert in London (including interviews with composers) on BBC (June 12 2010).  Available on their iplayer too; Crane for orchestra on Bernard Clarke's Nova on RTE Lyric FM (June 20) and on Danish Radio. Update July: Crash Ensemble's Le Poisson Rouge gig in New York is now up online at WQXR's Q2.  Features live performances of Streetwalker and As An Nós.

March 2010: New Releases

FAT (2000, rev. 2005) has been released by the Celestial Harmonies label in a recording made by William Dowdall. Reservoir (2007) is to be released in April by Diatribe Records in a recording made by Isabelle O'Connell.

February 2010: Icebreaker premieres new work

Icebreaker will premiere Disposable Dissonance (2009-10), a 17-minute piece commissioned by them, in Nottingham, UK on 24 February

Autumn/Winter 2009. Upcoming Premieres

Crane (24 mins) for orchestra will be premiered by RTE National Symphony Orchestra on 25 September at the National Concert Hall, Dublin.  An Irish Process for Orkest de Ereprijs will be premiered by them in Arnhem in the Netherlands on 29 October. As An Nós (15 mins) for ensemble will be premiered by San Francisco Contemporary Music Players at the Herbst Theatre San Francisco on 2 November, and then repeated by them at the MANCA Festival in Nice, France on 15 November.