Maynooth University Music

12/08/2026

Congrats to harp player and graduating Music student Rachael Dooley on winning the senior harp competition at the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil this weekend! Great to see more Maynooth University Music Department student success at the Fleadh Cheoil.

30/04/2026

Today's lunchtime concert offers a varied programme of works for pot plants, light sabres and wheels of fortune. Confused? Join us at 1pm and all will be revealed.

20/04/2026

This week's lunchtime concert in Riverstown Hall on 23rd April @ 1pm features an ambitious programme of works from composers such as John Cage, Luciano Berio and Luc Ferrari that utilise voice and live electronics.

31/03/2026

For this week's research seminar we welcome Dr Adam Melvin from the University of Ulster.

Performativity, Presence and Practice: Perspectives on Screen Scoring and the Soundtrack

The performative language of music and its relationship with our perception of presence have been a central concern in both my ongoing research in soundtrack studies and my compositional practice (installation work and scoring for screen). Drawing on current collaborative research undertaken with Dr, Brian Bridges (Ulster University) and Dr. Mark Ward (Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Sydney) exploring the application of embodied cognition to the study of Sound, Music and Moving image, this seminar will develop ideas initials outlined in the recent paper, more Beautiful Areas, Performativity and Presence in the Integrated Soundtrack. By considering examples of screen scoring that harness and even challenge perceived notions of acoustic vs synthesized sound and the live vs the virtual, I will discuss to what extent Donnelly’s analogy of the film soundtrack as spectral presence may be further expanded and adapted to reflect current trends in screen scoring practice.

Dr. Adam Melvin is a composer and lecturer in Music at Ulster University, Magee, Derry~Londonderry. Both his compositional and research practice is concerned with interrogating the relationship between music, sound, site and the visual arts, particularly moving image. His work has been performed throughout the UK and Ireland, mainland Europe, USA and Japan and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, RTÉ Radio 1 & Lyric FM, Antenna 2 (Portugal) and WFMT, Chicago. His research has been published in The Soundtrack, Short Film Studies (Intellect) and in Routledge’s Doing Research in Sound Design and Foundations in Sound Design series. He is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin.

25/03/2026

Don't miss today's research seminar in the Bewerunge Room at 4 pm, El Putnam: 'Inverted Imitation: Performing Android'. Tea, coffee and biscuits provided!

Dr El Putnam is Associate Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University, where she teaches digital media practice and theory classes on the BA Media Studies and BA Media and Cultural Studies programmes. Prior to coming to Maynooth in 2022, she worked at University of Galway as programme director of the MA in Digital Media and at TU Dublin. She holds a PhD from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in Visual Arts: Aesthetics, Art Theory, and Philosophy. In addition, she is a practicing artist who regularly exhibits nationally and internationally.

12/03/2026

This week's lunchtime concert on Thursday 12 March @ 1 pm in Riverstown Hall, welcomes Northern Irish pianist and composer, Ian Wilson.

Ian Wilson is a composer, pianist, conductor, and curator originally from Northern Ireland. He has composed over 250 works in many different genres which have been performed and broadcast on six continents.
As a pianist Ian has given the world premiere performances of pieces written specially for him by composers such as Colin Riley, Stephen Gardner, Deirdre McKay and David Morris; also the territorial premieres of works by Morton Feldman, Luciano Berio, Arvo Pärt, Michael Finnissy, Judith Weir, Milan Mihajlović and Howard Skempton.

He has conducted many choirs, ensembles and orchestras including Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ulster Orchestra, Ficino Ensemble, Chamber Choir Ireland, and Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra.
Ian is a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s national association of creative artists, and his music is published by G. Ricordi & Co. Ltd and Universal Edition. Visit: www.ianwilson.ie

10/03/2026

For this week's seminar, which will take place in the Bewerunge Room on Wednesday 11 March @ 4 pm, we welcome composer Ian Wilson who will be speaking on the title: 'Why Feldman?'

"What first drew me to Feldman’s music was a performance of his best-known work, “Rothko Chapel”, and its very specific atmosphere of hushed concentration. There is a definite tension in that piece yet its quietude seems to conceal it, creating an intensity unlike anything I had encountered".

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Ian Wilson is a composer, pianist, conductor, and curator originally from Northern Ireland. He has composed over 250 works in many different genres which have been performed and broadcast on six continents.
As a pianist Ian has given the world premiere performances of pieces written specially for him by composers such as Colin Riley, Stephen Gardner, Deirdre McKay and David Morris; also the territorial premieres of works by Morton Feldman, Luciano Berio, Arvo Pärt, Michael Finnissy, Judith Weir, Milan Mihajlović and Howard Skempton.
He has conducted many choirs, ensembles and orchestras including Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ulster Orchestra, Ficino Ensemble, Chamber Choir Ireland, and Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra.
Ian is a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s national association of creative artists, and his music is published by G. Ricordi & Co. Ltd and Universal Edition. Visit: www.ianwilson.ie

05/03/2026

On Tuesday 10 March RTÉ Radio 1 will visit Maynooth University to record an episode of the ever-popular Céilí House programme; all welcome in Riverstown Hall at 12:50.

On Tuesday 10 March RTÉ Radio 1 will visit Maynooth University to record an episode of the ever-popular Céilí House programme, featuring students and staff from the Music Department. Central to the performance will be the Music Department’s Traditional Group, which is led by its director Aislin...

02/03/2026

For this week's lunchtime concert - 5 March, Riverstown Hall @ 1pm - we welcome Belfast-based contemporary music ensemble, Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble.

“A ground-breaking and dynamic ensemble” Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble is Northern Ireland’s cutting-edge contemporary music group. Well-known for their daring approach to programming and immersive performances, Hard Rain features a world-class group of unique musicians specialising in modern music.

Hard Rain have performed at major festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Musicahora Festival (Chile), and Classical:NEXT in Berlin as well as closer to home at New Music Dublin, Sonorities Festival, Walled City Music and Belfast International Festival.

Peaceline Perspectives features highly evocative pieces from the North of Ireland. The music is interwoven with voices and soundscapes inspired around Belfast’s Peaceline, which separates the nationalist and loyalist communities. This performance showcases the work of multiple composers whose musical voices are shaped by their shared Northern Irish heritage. Greg Caffrey’s Tout (a slang term meaning informer) reflects on the horror, danger and mistrust prevalent during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Elaine Agnew’s I Want to tell you consists of instrumental duos accompanying a voice track of victims, survivors and displaced families affected by conflict, while Úna Monaghan uses the sounds of helicopters, drone noises and animal hunting whistles to depict the nature of people being quite literally Hunted.

There are moments of tranquility too. Áine Mallon’s Cállan and Ryan Molloy’s Gortnagarn II offer meditative reflections on the beauty of our shared landscape, and its meaning in our lives. Eduard Zatriqi’s War Games was composed as a musical commentary on the conflicts evident around the world in early 2016. Reading news articles concerning the rise of populism, nationalism, and violence perpetrated in the name of religion, he was struck by humanity's apparent inability or unwillingness to learn from past errors. Ten years on from that, it seems we are very much in the same situation, if not worse, and so this impassioned work brings the programme to a dramatic conclusion.

Eat Sleep Empire - Ian Wilson

Cállan - Áine Mallon

Tout - Greg Caffrey

Gortnagarn ll - Ryan Molloy

Hunted - Úna Monaghan

I want to tell you - Elaine Agnew

War Games - Eduard Zatriqi

26/02/2026

Bígí linn ar an 10 Márta le haghaidh ceolchoirm de cheol traidisiúnta, amhránaíocht agus rince mar chuid de Sheachtain na Gaeilge.
Join us on Tuesday 10 March at 8pm for a feast of traditional song, dance and music as part of Seachtain na Gaeilge and in support of Trad for Trócaire! Taking place in the atmospheric surroundings of St Mary's Church of Ireland, Maynooth, the concert features the Music Department's Traditional Group, Aisling Ní Coisdealbha, Damhnait Ní Fhátharta, Nada Ní Chuirrín, Alannah Thornburgh, Sofia Almeida Cruz, Ryan Molloy, Jason McGuinness, and many others. Admission is free - donations will be taken at the door for Trad for Trócaire.