About

Fergal Dowling is a composer, ensemble leader and music festival director. His works make extensive use of mixed forces, algorithmic composition, computer-mediated performance and sound spatialisation, which together inform his compositional concerns with space, presence, verisimilitude, and our relationship with technology.

He studied composition at Trinity College Dublin and University of York, and has worked as a studio technician, sound designer, and music lecturer. He has attended the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and IRCAM academies, and has had masterclasses with composers Peter Maxwell Davies, Louis Andriessen, Christina Kubisch, Dominic Muldowney and Leo Brouwer, and others.

He has received many composition and research awards, including Arts Council commissions and the Elizabeth Maconchy Composition Fellowship. His compositions have been performed by soloists and ensembles, including: Richard Craig, Zubin Kanga, Xenia Pestova Bennett, Garth Knox, loadbang, Splinter Reeds, Concorde, and notes inégales, and have been presented at festivals and conferences, including: IRCAM Forum Workshops (2020), CCRMA (2019), Sonorities (2018), Ecos Urbanos (2017), Osaka Electroacoustic Music Festival (2017), Noise in/and/as Music (2013), Música Viva (2010); Japan Electroacoustic Festival (2009), ISCM World Music Days (2009) and Future Sonic (2007).

In 2008 Fergal co-founded the music group Dublin Sound Lab through which he has commissioned and curated collaborative projects, including: a real-time composition workshop-concert with Karlheinz Essl (2011); Mirrors of Earth, a reimagining of MAA, Kaija Saariaho's seminal ballet, with new video arts works (2013); Places and Responses, a multi-venue, site-specific collaboration with Peter Ablinger for Dublin Fringe Festival (2014); and Perisonic, an immersive panoramic representation of Dublin city for surround sound and surround video (2017).

In 2016 he founded Music Current, Dublin's annual contemporary electronic music festival, which has brought many leading international composers and performers to Ireland, including: Christopher Fox, Stefan Prins, Lucy Railton, Izumi Kimura, Stephane Ginsbugh, Ensemble Tzara, YarnWire Ensemble, Stock11, Michael Maierhof, Schallfeld Ensemble, Daniel Gloger, Frank Corcoran, Bastard Assignments, Zubin Kanga, Stephane Ginsburgh, Mira Benjamin, Nadar Ensemble, loadbang, Splinter Reeds, Natacha Diels, and Steven Takasugi.