Crash Ensemble

Crash Ensemble is an Irish new music ensemble, founded in 1997 by composer Donnacha Dennehy, conductor and pianist Andrew Synott and clarinettist Michael Seaver. It played its first concert in Dublin in 1997. It currently consists of 11 performers and the conductor Alan Pierson, under the artistic direction of Dennehy, as well as using video, lighting and sound amplification as an integral part of the project.

The ensemble has been particularly associated with totalist (post-minimalist) composers from the US and post-new Hague school composers from Holland, as well as performing much music by Dennehy and other Irish composers and older pieces by the minimalist generation (including Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Louis Andriessen, Gavin Bryars, Roberto Carnevale, Kevin Volans and Terry Riley). It has given premieres or commissioned work by Peter Adriaansz, Raymond Deane, Arnold Dreyblatt, Stephen Gardner, Michael Gordon, John Godfrey, Andrew Hamilton, Jurgen Simpson, Gerhard Stabler, Jennifer Walshe, Ian Wilson, Linda Buckley and Julie Feeney.

Since 2002 Crash has been mounting its own contemporary music festivals in Dublin, in a similar manner to the Bang on a Can Festival in New York, including adopting their popular 'marathon' format for their 2006 celebration of Reich.

Other than touring in Ireland, Crash have performed in Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the United States. They have recorded for New York label Cantaloupe Music as well as for NMC Recordings in London.