Irish composers and performers will take centre stage at New Music Dublin 2026, with premieres, major orchestral works and experimental collaborations forming the backbone of this year's programme.
Running from 15–19 April at the National Concert Hall, Project Arts Centre and Windmill QTR, the festival presents five days of contemporary music from Ireland and abroad.
Established in 2013, New Music Dublin has become Ireland’s leading contemporary music festival, building the international profile of Irish new music while introducing global work to Irish audiences. The 2026 edition features artists from Canada, Germany, Belgium, the UK, the USA and Japan alongside Irish composers, ensembles and performers.
A strong literary thread runs throughout the 2026 NMD programme: the RTÉ Concert Orchestra will give the world premiere of Kevin O’Connell’s Paradiso, based on Dante’s third cantica, scored for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra, while Gerald Barry’s Salome receives its Irish premiere from the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland under conductor Jérôme Kuhn.
Elsewhere, Gare St Lazare Ireland will present a work-in-progress adaptation of Marcel Mihalovici’s chamber opera The Last Tape, based on Samuel Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape. On the Diatribe stage, saxophonist and composer Patrick Zimmerli presents Lucia Joyce, a new opera exploring the life of James Joyce’s daughter. Donnacha Dennehy's Grammy Award-winning Land of Winter will be performed by Crash Ensemble, one of a trio of appearnces from the Ensemble in the NMD programme.
The festival will also feature the premiere of Jane O’Leary’s Fanfare: From 2RN to RTÉ – Celebrating 100 Years, marking a century since Ireland’s first public radio transmission.
International highlights include two appearances by Germany’s Ensemble Musikfabrik, presenting It Breathes and No Salt, featuring Irish premieres of works by Georges Aperghis, Jessie Marino and Ailís Ní Ríain. Belgium’s Nadar Ensemble and Het Collectief will present programmes including Morton Feldman’s Why Patterns. Canadian organisation Soundstreams makes its festival debut with the European premiere of Thierry Tidrow’s I Want to Tell You Everything.
Other participants include Belfast’s Hard Rain Ensemble, Chamber Choir Ireland and NCH Cór na nÓg, while Diatribe Records will curate late-evening performances at Project Arts Centre featuring experimental and cross-genre artists.
Find out more about this year's New Music Dublin programme here.
