Presented in partnership with the Arts Council of Ireland, the National Concert Hall and RTÉ, New Music Dublin 2022 returns, with a 25-concert-strong Festival across Dublin. Venues include the National Concert Hall, Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle’s Chapel Royal and Courtyard.
As well as indoor and outdoor live performances there will be festival-long installations in the National Concert Hall, album launches, a record fair, the annual NMDX international new music conference hosted by CMC, and live streaming on YouTube and Instagram for selected concerts.
We’re proud to be including an ever-widening variety and diversity of composers and performers; this year we’ll be including world premieres by young composers for young performers in the Cór na nÓg and Cór Linn programme, thrilling new work from emerging under-represented voices in the NCH Creative Lab project, new work by and for young musicians in BrassFest, new work with sign language in George Higgs’ ground-breaking new performance, and the up-and-coming compositional voices represented by the Irish Composers’ Collective and Crash Works.
Performing at the National Concert Hall on the opening night, Andreas Borregaard and the Oslo Sinfonietta will be performing the Irish Premiere of Jennifer Walshe’s PERSONHOOD. In this commissioned work, the Oslo Sinfonietta surrounds the accordionist Andreas Borregaard and subjects him to a range of tests and procedures.
New Music Dublin 2022 will be welcoming musicians from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, alongside musicians from the Royal Irish Academy of Music, for two Irish premieres on the second night of the festival. This collaboration marks the new strategic partnership between the two organisations in the framework of the Ireland-France Joint Plan of Action signed in August 2021 during the visit of President Macron to Ireland. This will be followed by the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Stefan Asbury. In the Orchestra’s programme, we commemorate the passing of Louis Andriessen last year, as well as presenting the Irish premiere of Rebecca Saunders' Trumpet Concerto with soloist Marco Blaauw, and the world premiere of Benjamin Dwyer's ‘In Memoriam Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’.
On Sunday Night the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Maloney will perform four world premieres from Ailís Ní Ríain, Andrew Synnott, Garrett Sholdice and Stephen Gardner and featuring Michael McHale as piano soloist.
Record labels Diatribe and Ergodos will have a robust presence at the New Music Dublin 2022 festival this year. Nathan Sherman and Alex Petcu will open the Festival with a performance of their debut album Totemic, launching on the Ergodos label. Further Ergodos-curated programmes include TONNTA performing a late-night evening ritual at the Chapel Royal on the Thursday, and Avenue Azure at the NCH on the Friday evening.
Diatribe, who will be hosting the NARLI record fair and AGM during the festival, also present a full complement of performances in the National Concert Hall, including Diamanda La Berge Dramm (“the Björk of the violin”), Kevin Volans, with a new major duet performed by Volans and Jill Richards, a Jazz Triple Bill, and Irene Murphy, Natalia Beylis and Óscar Mascareñas who will perform their Landscape Series.
Festival-favourites Crash Ensemble will be presenting Crash Works - works-in-progress in a collaboration between New Music Dublin and Crash Ensemble offering a range of mentoring and supports for emerging composers, culminating in a commission for full ensemble by each creator to be premiered at next year’s festival. This open session will see a female-strong programme with five World Premieres from female composers. As well as Crash 25, a celebration of Crash’s 25th anniversary with premieres by Emma O’Halloran and Sam Perkin. Crash will also be taking to the stage with Diamanda La Berge Dramm on the closing evening of the festival, followed by label-mate Colm O’Hara on the Diatribe Stage.
We are very grateful to the OPW who are allowing us to host New Music Dublin’s BrassFest in the Courtyard of Dublin Castle on Saturday morning. Here we have six world premieres, created by emerging composers with six brass bands from across Ireland, followed by a performance of a new work for massed brass ensemble led by The Wallace Collection brass quintet from Scotland.
Belfast’s Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble will be performing newly-commissioned work from Frank Corcoran, and superstar Irish pianist Isabelle O’Connell presenting a solo concert of 21st century works by composers from both sides of the Atlantic.
Chamber Choir Ireland will be performing at Christ Church Cathedral on the Saturday evening, conducted by Paul Hillier. CCI will also be giving premiere performances of new works for the Choral Sketches programme on Thursday afternoon in the National Concert Hall.
In keeping with New Music Dublin’s status as Ireland’s foremost contemporary music festival, NMD will partner with CMC to host the annual international delegate programme NMDX, which attracts delegates from across the world to everything that NMD has to offer.