ABOUT Dublin Sound Lab
Dublin Sound Lab is a contemporary music project group specialising in electronic and computer-mediated concert performance. As well as presenting existing works, we initiate collaborations and use computer-based techniques to explore relationships between compositional process and performance practice, and to create new and engaging concerts.
Formed in 2008 by composer Fergal Dowling and organist Michael Quinn, Dublin Sound Lab has worked with many leading Irish and international composers, performing works by: Ailis Ni Riain, Gérard Grisey, Salvatore Sciarrino, Kaija Saariaho, Luca Francesconi, Karlheinz Essl, Peter Ablinger, Mauricio Kagel, Wim de Ruiter, Ann Cleare, Scott McLaughlin, Barry Truax, Roderik de Man, Karen Tanaka, Jean-Claude Risset, Ed Bennett, Judith Ring, Gerald Barry, Jonathan Nangle, Jonathan Harvey, Rob Canning, Gráinne Mulvey, David Bremner, and Garth Knox, amongst others.
In 2016 Dublin Sound Lab launched MUSIC CURRENT, Dublin's annual festival of contemporary electronic music. The festival features guest composers, international performers, workshops, masterclasses, public discussions, new commission opportunities, and premiers of works by participating composers.
Fergal Dowling is a composer and Artistic Director of Dublin Sound Lab. His compositions combine acoustic and electronic forces with computer-based interaction and sound spatialisation, and have been performed widely at festivals, including: Sonorities, ISSTA, Música Viva, Music Current, Japan Electroacoustic Festival, ISCM World Music Days, Future Sonic; and by ensembles and soloists, including: Garth Knox, Xenia Pestova, Zubin Kanga, Concorde, Projektgruppe Neue Musik Bremen, and notes inégales.
He studied composition at Trinity College Dublin (BMus, 2000, MLitt, 2002) and York (PhD, 2006), and has worked as a studio technician, sound designer, and lecturer in music technology. He has received many research and composition awards, including the Elizabeth Maconchy Composition Fellowship and Arts Council Bursaries and Commissions, and has attended major international new music academies (IRCAM, Acanthes, Darmstadt) and masterclasses with Peter Maxwell Davies, Dominic Muldowney, Louis Andriessen, Christina Kubisch, Leo Brouwer and others.
He has curated major collaborative projects, including: Real-time Composition Workshop with Karlheinz Essl (Project Arts Centre); Re-Sounding Dublin (Contemporary Music Centre, Salon); Mirrors of Earth with Kaija Saariaho's MAA and new video works (Project Arts Centre, Dublin); Places and Responses with Peter Ablinger (Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival); and Perisonic, an immersive audio-visual installation with Gráinne Mulvey and Scott McLaughlin (Music Current Festival, 2017).
Michael Quinn studied piano and organ at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and organ and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague. He is a music graduate of Trinity College Dublin and King's College London.
Michael has appeared as organist in The Netherlands, Spain and England and as soloist with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. He has given recitals in St Patrick's Cathedral, and St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin and in St Michael's Church, Dun Laoghaire, as part of their summer series. With a particular interest in new music, he has premiered works by Fergal Dowling and Jacques Bank, and presented several Irish premieres with Dublin Sound Lab.
