Music Current Festival returns this Spring for 5 days of new Irish and international music, offering some of the newest beats and technology in music:

Dublin Sound Lab’s Music Current festival returns to its creative home at Project Arts Centre this April (22- 26) with the biggest programme yet offering 5 concerts over 5 days, including Dublin Sound Lab’s trademark multimedia “Frenzy” concert, and visiting artists from France, Germany and Poland. The annual festival showcases some of the best Irish and international contemporary music makers. The festival will also host workshops, talks, discussions and the 2025 Music Current Commission for composers looking to make new work.

Now in its 9th edition of the festival offers a showcase of contemporary Irish and new international electronic music in an accessible and friendly environment. It continues to platform some of the most trailblazing music artists including this year’s artists; Pony Says Trio (Germany), composer Maximilian Marcoll (Germany), pianist Małgorzata Walentynowicz (Poland), SOUNDINITIATIVE (France), all of whom are performing in Ireland for the very first time - and Irish composers and makers Tim Cape and Rob Canning, and visual artist Jaki Irvine, and vocal ensemble Tonnta, who are dedicated to performing with new music. As well as the main concert programme, the festival includes workshops, professional development classes, and a public panel discussion. These five days in April host an exciting mix of meetings with these Irish and international creative minds where composers are increasingly using new techniques and strategies to organise and create new sound at Music Current Festival.

Festival Director, Fergal Dowling commenting on this year’s programme says: “Music Current Festival has become a real creative hub where audiences can experience the breadth of international contemporary music. This year’s programme is the biggest yet with five concerts, including Dublin Sound Lab’s trademark multimedia “Frenzy” concert, and visiting artists from France, Germany and Poland. 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. As always, every piece in every programme is an Irish premiere, but, since 2025 is Palestrina’s 500th anniversary, one highlight is Maximilian Marcoll’s Amproprification VI, based on Palestrina’s famous Missa Papae Marcelli. Whether you take part in a workshop, discussion or concert, each event is unique and has to be experienced.”

Evonne Ferguson, Director of the Contemporary Music Centre, commenting on this year’s Music Current festival says: “The Contemporary Music Centre is delighted to continue its ongoing partnership with Music Current Festival in supporting the professional development programme. This year’s series workshops and talks provide opportunities for both emerging and established artists to connect with international composers and performers - we look forward to facilitating these creative exchanges here at 19 Fishamble St.. We’re thrilled also to see Music Current’s continued commitment to fostering international collaborations in their performance programme - with works by composers from Ireland featured alongside international contemporaries and performed by a fantastic cohort of both Ireland-based and international artists.”

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.

“Music Current festival in Dublin has its finger more firmly on the pulse of what’s happening in Europe and internationally.”- Journal of Music

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]

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.

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: https://www.cmc.ie/library-booking-in-person-virtual

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

PERFORMANCE LISTINGS:
PROJECT ARTS CENTRE, East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Jaki Irvine – SHHh...Ow...emmM: Tuesday 22 April | 6pm [90 mins] | €16/20 | https://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/jaki-irvine-av-performance.html

Dublin Sound Lab – FRENZY: Wednesday 23 April | 8pm [75 mins] | €16/20 | https://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/dublin-sound-lab-concert.html

Pony Says Trio : Thursday 24 April | 8pm [60 mins] | €16/20 | https://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/pony-says-concert.html

Maximilian Marcoll + Tonnta – AMPROPRIFICATION VI: Friday 25 April | 8pm [75 mins] | €16/20 | https://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/max-marcoll-tonnta.html

SOUNDINITIATIVE – Shh…Let’s Play: Saturday 26 April | 6pm [60 mins] | €16/20 | https://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/sound-initiative-concert.html
Małgorzata Walentynowicz: Saturday 26 April | 8pm [60 mins] | €16/20 | https://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/walentynowicz-concert.html

Box Office / Tel: +353 1 8819 613 / projectartscentre.ie
Further info at: http://www.musiccurrent.ie/2025/