New Music Dublin 2026: what to see if you love..

New Music Dublin runs at the National Concert Hall and Project Arts Centre from Wednesday April 15th to Sunday April 19th.

New Music Dublin is Ireland’s foremost contemporary music festival, but the programme can be difficult to decipher if you’re not already knee deep in that world.

So here’s an attempt to equate some parallels for the curious, the open-eared, and the adventurous among you.

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If you’ve gone down a Rosalía LUX rabbit hole… – the Saturday double bill of Old Segotia / Land of Winter on Saturday April 18th is a recommend.

If you loved the stirring power of the strings and sprawling detail of Rosalia’s Lux, as I did, then the recent Grammy winning chamber work Land of Winter from Irish contemporary composer Donnacha Dennehy, at New Music Dublin performed by Crash Ensemble might scratch that itch. Land of Winter explores the subtleties of Ireland’s seasons via twelve connected sections representing the months of the year. It’s ambitious and far-reaching orchestral motion if you’re looking.

Old Segotia meanwhile, is Seán Mac Erlaine and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh’s collaborative project finds the old friends bridging the gap between jazz, sonic experimentation and tradition.

Two works in one evening, both concerned with the boundary between folk tradition, the classical world and something genuinely contemporary.

S aturday April 18th, 7pm.

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If you love the feeling of sound as physical experience – if you’ve ever stood too close to a speaker at a club and felt the bass in your chest – then Ensemble Musikfabrik’s two Thursday programmes at the NCH are for you.

Germany’s leading contemporary ensemble are doing two shows on April 16th: It Breathes at 4pm (an exploration of breath, resonance and extended technique that treats the concert hall like a sound installation) and No Salt at 7pm, recomposed for five strings and electronics, described as music that pushes instruments and voices to their limits. The kind of listening experience you don’t forget quickly.

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If you’re a fan of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s quieter passages, the sound design of Cornelius’ Point album, or even the textural guitar work on Lankum records – the closing night Crash Ensemble programme deserves your attention.

The festival closes on Sunday April 19th with Crash Ensemble presenting Jack at The Studio, NCH at 9:15pm – and it’s the programme most likely to surprise people who haven’t encountered this kind of music before.

Four premieres in one evening: Hannah Kendall’s Building a Burning House (world premiere, co-commissioned by Crash, Miller Theatre New York and Ensemble Musikfabrik), Tansy Davies’ Lost Science (Irish premiere), and two pieces from Crash’s [REACTIONS] series – Jonathan Nangle’s Sotto Voce and David Fennessy’s Jack – both exploring restraint, near-silence and the possibilities of writing for electric guitar in a chamber context.

The Nangle and Fennessy pieces are concerned with what happens at the very edges of sound – the physical presence of an amplified string instrument pushed to its quietest extreme, where the instrument’s body and breath become as audible as the note itself. It’s the same territory that makes the quieter passages of F# A# ∞ so arresting, Cornelius’ 2001 album Point such imagination in its sustained notes, or that gives Lankum’s slower pieces their particular weight. The context is different but the instinct is the same.

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If you’re into ambient music – Burial, Stars of the Lid, anything that rewards patience and rewards headphones – the opening night is built for you.

Sophie Cooper and cellist Eimear Reidy play Echoes and Reclamation at Project Arts Centre on Wednesday April 15th, a work shaped by field recordings, recycling and transformed soundscapes. On the same bill, Strider – the duo of Joanna Mattrey and Steven Long – make their European debut, blending field recordings, found objects and strings into intimate, slowly unfolding sound worlds. €10, 7:30pm, Project Arts Centre.

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If you’re curious about what experimental jazz or improvised music sounds like when it collides with formal composition, the Diatribe Stage nights running Thursday through Saturday are the ones to catch. The Diatribe label has been one of the most interesting things happening in Irish music for years, programming artists at the intersection of jazz, new music and electronics. Thursday night (April 17th, 9:30pm) brings Wind Songs and Sky Rivers; Saturday (April 18th, 9:45pm) brings Shelta and Ireland/Belgian-based avant-jazz anf experimental improv duo Insufficient Funs.

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If you’ve ever listened to a Bill Evans record and wondered what would happen if you took that kind of harmonic intelligence and applied it to contemporary composition, the Friday afternoon programme Ghost Trance Music (April 17th, 3:30pm) is the entry point – a piece built on hypnotic, meditative repetition with genuine emotional depth beneath the surface.

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The most dramatic event in the programme is probably Gerald Barry’s Salome with the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland on Friday April 17th at 7:30pm. Barry is one of the most singular composers Ireland has produced – genuinely funny, genuinely disturbing, genuinely unlike anyone else – and this is the Irish premiere of his take on the Oscar Wilde work. If you know the original story, Barry’s version does things to it that will make you laugh and wince in equal measure.

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And if you’ve never been to any of this and want to literally make music rather than just listen to it, Totally Made Up Music on Saturday April 12th at 12pm is open to everyone regardless of experience. No instruments required. Just show up.

The full programme is at newmusicdublin.ie. Most events are reasonably priced and several are free. The festival runs April 15th-19th at the National Concert Hall and Project Arts Centre.