Donnchadh Mac Aodha

Donnchadh Mac Aodha is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Dundalk, Co.Louth. He studied music and Irish at University College Cork, where he was a Quercus Creative & Performing Arts Scholar. Donnchadh’s compositional output engages with the boundary of contemporary music and traditional Irish music, drawing on his extensive experience as a traditional harper and flute player.

His pieces have been performed at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival, Ostrava Days Festival, Cork International Choral Festival, West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival, and the New Ross Piano Festival. In 2024 he was commissioned to write a suite for Consairtín, The National Concertina Convention. Donnchadh’s final-year composition project, Éist le Fuaim na hAbhann: Echoing Sean-nós in Contemporary Classical Composition, won the Danijela Kulezic-Wilson Undergraduate Award for Exceptional Innovation in Research.

Donnchadh is honoured to be the joint-recipient of this year’s Irish Heritage Composition Bursary, which he will use to fund further study at the Royal College of Music, London.