Dublin Sound Lab’s annual festival of contemporary music has announced its return from April 22nd to 26th at the Project Arts Centre.
The ninth edition of the festival offers a showcase of contemporary Irish and new international electronic music in an accessible and friendly environment with five concerts across five days.
Dublin Sound Lab’s trademark multimedia “Frenzy” concert is taking place along with performances from Pony Says Trio (Germany), composer Maximilian Marcoll (Germany), pianist Małgorzata Walentynowicz (Poland) and SOUNDINITIATIVE (France) all of whom are performing in Ireland for the very first time along with and Irish composers Tim Cape and Rob Canning. Irish visual artist Jaki Irvine and Irish vocal ensemble Tonnta also perform among others composers and artists below.
The festival includes workshops, professional development classes, a public panel discussion and the 2025 Music Current Commission for composers looking to make new work.
“There are three new commissions, four workshops on music theatre, composition, guitar technology and digital scores, a panel discussion on music “ownership”, and an audio-visual performance at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios,” says Festival Director, Fergal Dowling
Music Current has a reputation for presenting music that is cutting edge, fun and visionary, and this year the programme is entirely made up of Irish and world premieres, with a strong focus on visuals and live electronics and the experience of live music. The festival is a showcase of the “newest of the new” music from Ireland and worldwide.
Music Current performances
PROJECT ARTS CENTRE, East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Jaki Irvine – SHHh…Ow…emmM: Tuesday 22 April | 6pm [90 mins] | €16/20 |
Dublin Sound Lab – FRENZY: Wednesday 23 April | 8pm [75 mins] | €16/20 |
Pony Says Trio : Thursday 24 April | 8pm [60 mins] | €16/20 |
Maximilian Marcoll + Tonnta – Amproprification VI: Friday 25 April | 8pm [75 mins] | €16/20
SOUNDINITIATIVE – Shh…Let’s Play: Saturday 26 April | 6pm [60 mins] | €16/20 |
Małgorzata Walentynowicz: Saturday 26 April | 8pm [60 mins] | €16/20 |
Box Office / Tel: +353 1 8819 613 / projectartscentre.ie
Further info at: http://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/
Full details on the Music Current programme
PERFORMANCE:
Tuesday 22 April: renowned Irish artist Jaki Irvine who is celebrated for her innovative and interdisciplinary practice open this year’s festival with a 90-minute audio-visual performance called SHHh…Ow…emmM. Produced in partnership with Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, this event will involve video development, music performances and installations, which will culminate in an installation and collaborative performance at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, later this year. In this partially devised improvised audio-visual music performance Jaki projects and manipulates her video works in real-time to create a “live score” for the musicians.
CONCERTS:
Wednesday 23 April: Dublin Sound Lab’s presents FRENZY. This concert event will be the true opening concert at Music Current 2025 and you can expect DSL’s trademark international multimedia style, featuring a new commission from by rising star Lautaro Figuero Bacarce (Argentina), Michael Beil’s (Geramny) seminal, virtuosic and highly idiomatic study of string technique (and video technique!), Peter Fahey’s (Irl) new work specially written for this programme, Christof Ressi’s (Austria) witty study of computer-video-music interaction, and festival director Fergal Dowling’s inharmonic transhumanist anti-manifesto, Super_Human.
Thursday 24 April: Germany’s Pony Says Trio, who specialise in contemporary music and free improvisation. Starting from the concept of the grid, Pony Says develop two large-format works in intensive collaboration with Maximilian Marcoll and Robert Canning, in which both composers transfer the theme of partitioning to the form and content of their works. Exploring the concepts of spatialization, improvisation, or live-generated scores, both works break open the traditional concert framework.
Friday 25 April: Irish vocal ensemble Tonnta together with German composer Maximilian Marcoll, who’s work centres on media-reflective aspects of music, as well as the social and political potential of it.
This unique programme brings together two settings of the Catholic Mass: Frank Corcoran’s visceral Quasi Una Missa (for recorded voices), and Maximillian Marcoll’s Amproprification VI (after Palestrina’s iconic Missa Papae Marcelli. Corcoran’s setting, originally for radio, is presented in concert format and is replayed here on loudspeakers in near darkness. In Marcoll’s setting (or should that be resetting) Palestrina’s mass is heard in full, sung by seven voices of Tonnta vocal ensemble, while Marcoll overlays a rapidly cut amplified version of the same performance, such that we can perceive and appreciate the original material (Palestrina’s Missa) and Marcoll’s new intervening electronically mediated layer.
Amproprification, a portmanteau of the words “appropriation” and “amplification”, is a series of works for performers and automated amplification.
Saturday 26 April: SOUNDINITIATIVE (France) stages Shh…Let’s Play – their celebration of childlike moments of dreaming, playing and laughing. This intimate concert incorporates creative listening, comic gesturing, instrumental experimentation and creative game play. Through exploring the CUBE concert space by scattering the different pieces in different places within the room, the audience goes on a journey of playful discoveries, from video lullabies, to flash mob movements, to game-play between performers and the audience, and finishing with an absurdist musical theatrical performance.
Saturday 26 April: Małgorzata Walentynowicz is a Polish pianist specializing in contemporary music known for her aesthetically radical work and for being a politically active pianist. She weaves a live piano performance to a film documentary called The Mountain and the Maiden, about fast fashion that is set at a Landfill in New Delhi, India. Created by Hoffman and von Heiseler with music by Sarah Nemtsov the film exposes the hidden side of a global lifestyle – the journey of discarded products and the consequences of unbridled consumption. The film features a unique soundtrack: interwoven with landfill sounds — truck rumbles, bird cries, and human voices—creating a haunting “silent story” of the 21st century.
WORKSHOPS:
On Wednesday 23 April @ 3pm (2hrs):
Musician and composer Shane Latimer explores contemporary guitar techniques in his workshop at Music Current 2025. He will dive into the extended possibilities of the guitar, focusing on creative approaches to playing the strings—scraping, tapping, harmonics, prepared guitar techniques, and percussive elements that push the instrument’s boundaries. Exploring how shaping the sound after the pickup, through effects, looping, and digital manipulation, opens up an endless palette of sonic textures. When connect these techniques, you will investigate how they can inspire forms of automatic music—where the interplay of performer and technology generates evolving, self-sustaining compositions. This workshop is ideal for musicians looking to expand their vocabulary, experiment with unconventional soundscapes, and reimagine the guitar as a versatile tool for creative expression.
*This workshop is suitable for musicians, composers and concert-goers, or anyone with an interest in electronic music and how it is composed, or how technology can be integrated into composition and performance.
On Thursday 24 April @ 11am (2hrs): Rob Canning is an Irish composer, musician, and researcher known for his innovative use of digital technologies in composition, performance, and improvisation. He presents a workshop on “Rotula”, an interactive software tool for live musical performances, workshops, and rehearsals, which he developed specially for his new commission with Pony Says ensemble. Designed to provide a dynamic and synchronised experience, Rotula enables playback of SVG-based scores with integrated support for multimedia elements, OSC (Open Sound Control), and customisable playback options. Rotula presents a synchronised interactive computer-based scrolling graphic score playback system.
On Friday 25 April @ 3pm (2hrs): Irish composer Tim Cape, who combines notated music, improvisation, physicality and text to create visceral music-theatre – will lead a workshop on inter-disciplinary performance, guiding participants through methods to generate performance material using instruments, voice, text, objects and movement. This workshop will be hands-on and practical, and is suitable to students and professionals in the performing arts as well as anyone with an interest in live performance and an adventurous spirit. Tim will give a short presentation on his own work before participants dive in and start making work collaboratively with each other.
*Music Current workshops are supported by the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin (www.cmc.ie). Composer participants resident on the island of Ireland, travelling from outside Dublin, can apply for a travel and subsistence bursary by contacting festival staff when attending workshop events, or by contacting [email protected]
A central feature of Music Current Festival is the creative collaboration of composers and performers with the presentation of new works, and Music Current regularly commissions new compositions and creates opportunities for collaborative development.
*All workshops will be free, booking is essential and participants are asked to contribute €5 at time of booking to cover refreshments. Workshop events are supported by the Contemporary Music Centre.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS / TALKS
Wednesday 23 April // 6pm–7pm // WHO OWNS MUSIC?: Discussion on Ownership of Music Material and Communities”
Each year Music Current Festival invites music audiences and the wider public to engage in debates and discussions concerning how music making is affected by technology, social changes and the political environment.
In contemporary media the ubiquity of digital technology is matched by the increasing concentration of communications resources in the hands of a trans-national corporate complex. The trend raises profound concerns in many fields, especially concerning the direct ownership of the means of communications. For musicians and audiences, this impinges on the idea of ownership in many ways, whether that is ownership of copyright, ownership of means of production or distribution, ownership of musical material from the composer’s perspective, a sense of ownership from the listener’s perspective, or a sense of ownership within a community of listeners.
Here, four composers, academics, researchers and music industry professionals share insights into their personal experience of how technology impinges on their ownership of their own material, practice and communities:
PANELISTS: Philipp Krebs (DE), composer / Maximilian Marcoll (DE), composer / Breffni Banks (IRL), IMRO / Laetitia Deering (IRL), artist agent
The discussion is open and accessible to public participation, and contributions are welcome from the audience. The discussion will be followed immediately by the Festival Launch Event at Project Arts Centre Bar. Attendees are invited to join us for refreshments and the festival reception at 7pm.
This event is hosted in collaboration with the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland’s archive and resource centre for new music. The discussion is moderated by Jonathan Grimes (CMC Head of Content) and will be recorded for the Contemporary Music Centre’s ‘amplify’ podcast (see cmc.ie/amplify). The event is free to attend, but booking is advised.
Thursday 24 April // 3pm–5pm // TALK with Maximilian Marcoll @ Contemporary Music Centre (CMC):
In his presentation, Max Marcoll will discuss the context in which the Amproprification series was created, offering insight into its conceptual foundation, technical aspects, and the specifics of the individual movements in Amproprification VI.
This workshop is suitable for musicians, composers and concert-goers, or anyone with an interest in electronic music and how it is composed, or how technology can be integrated into composition and performance.
*Access to the CMC Building – information is available here.
MUSIC CURRENT COMMISSION 2025
Music Current Festival invites composers to propose new works for Dublin Sound Lab to be performed in Dublin, April 2026. Submissions may be for any combination of flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, MIDI keyboard, electric guitar, electronics, or video, without conductor.
The festival will review proposals according to flexible criteria, but we would especially like to receive proposals that engage critically with technology, media, or collaborative performance.
One applicant will be offered an award of €4,000. The commissioned composer will work closely with Dublin Sound Lab until April 2025, and may be invited to give public presentations on their work or to contribute to outreach, mentoring, or other professional development programmes in collaboration with our production partners.
Previous commissioned composers include: Anna Murray (Ire), Silvia Rosani (Italy), Patricia Martinez (Argentina), Seán O’Dálaigh (Ire), Panayiotis Kokoras (Greece), Brona Martin (Ire), Alessandro Massobrio (Italy/Germany), and João Pedro Oliveira (Portugal) and Lautaro Figueroa Balcarce (Argentina).
Applications close 11:59pm (GMT), Thursday 17 April, 2025. The winning proposal will be announced on Friday 30 May, 2026 – https://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/commission.html
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 concert experiences. 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.
Music Current is produced in collaboration with the Contemporary Music Centre and supported by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, and Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, and with the friendly support of Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
About Contemporary Music Centre Ireland
The Contemporary Music Centre (CMC) is the archive and resource centre for Contemporary Music, supporting artists working in New Music throughout the island of Ireland. CMC connects New Music artists and audiences, facilitating opportunities for engagement, professional development and collaboration, both at home and internationally. As the archive for New Music from the island, CMC maps our vibrant musical landscape, safeguarding an ever-evolving collection for public access online and at the CMC Library on 19 Fishamble street. CMC is funded by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
