Packed full of world premieres, guest conductors, and exciting collaborations, we have so much to look forward to this season!
We begin our Spring-Summer 2025 season with a journey into nature, as Eamonn Dougan (The Sixteen, Britten Sinfonia Voices) takes us on a trip down The Green Road—featuring the world premiere of Eoghan Desmond’s Guthanna ar an gCnoc. This programme will be performed on Saturday 22 February 2025 at 6:30pm at the Pepper Canister Church, Dublin, and on Sunday 23 February 2025 at 6:30pm in Fisherwick Church, Belfast.
In March, we travel to Clonmel for the first performance in a multi-year partnership with Finding a Voice, highlighting choral works by women composers. Owain Park (The Gesualdo Six) joins us for Sing Before Night, a programme of works by Hildegard of Bingen, Sulpitia Cesis, Raffaella Aleotti, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Caroline Shaw, Thea Musgrave, and Shruthi Rajasekar, to name just a few. The concert will take place on Sunday 9 March 2025 at 4:00pm at Old St Mary’s Church, Clonmel.
We return to New Music Dublin in April with a programme of contemporary choral music, Refracting Light led by Benjamin Goodson (Netherlands Radio Choir). Featuring works by Iannis Xenakis, Georgi Sztojanov, Arvo Pärt, Kaija Saariaho, and Anna-Karin Klockar, this concert will take place on Saturday 5 April 2025, time and venue to be confirmed.
Also part of New Music Dublin, we will join the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Gavin Maloney for the first live performance of Irene Buckley’s Lament for Art O’Leary—which you may have heard on RTÉ lyric fm back in December (listen back). This performance will take place on Sunday 6th April at the National Concert Hall.
On Good Friday, we join forces with the National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and David Hill for James MacMillan’s dramatic setting of the St John Passion, on Friday 18 April at 3:30pm at the National Concert Hall.
In May, we welcome back Gabriel Crouch (Princeton University) for Forgotten Peoples, exploring themes of homelessness, migration, and belonging. Performances will take place at Dublin’s Pepper Canister Church on Thursday 1 May 2025, 6:30pm; and at Cork’s St Fin Barre’s Cathedral on Friday 2 May 2025, 7:30pm as part of Cork International Choral Festival. This programme will feature world premieres of new commissions by Emma O’Halloran (Ireland) and Francisco del Pino (Argentina). The Cork performance will also feature the winning entry in this year’s Seán Ó’Riada Composition Competition—soon to be announced.
Following last year’s sold-out Irish premiere at Kilkenny Arts Festival, we will once again join our friends Crash Ensemble for Jóhann Jóhannsson’s mesmerising Drone Mass. Led by Gabriel Crouch, we will take this iconic work on tour to Limerick, Letterkenny, and Dún Laoghaire from Wednesday 7 to Sunday 11 May 2025.
We finish our season at Louth Contemporary Music Society’s annual summer festival with Songs of the Soul, a programme of works by Kevin Volans and the world premiere of a new commission by Sarah Davachi. Led by Nils Schweckendiek, this concert will take place at 8:00pm on Saturday 14 June 2025 at St Nicholas Church of Ireland, Dundalk.