Donnacha Dennehy x Alarm Will Sound: Land of Winter

Alarm Will Sound is “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene” (New York Times). A 20-member band committed to innovative performances and recordings of today’s music, they have established a reputation for performing demanding music with energetic virtuosity. 

With classical skill and unlimited curiosity, Alarm Will Sound takes on music from a wide variety of styles. “Stylistically omnivorous and physically versatile” (The Log Journal), their repertoire comes from around the world and ranges from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced. Since its inception, Alarm Will Sound has been associated with composers at the forefront of contemporary music. The group itself includes many composer-performers, which allows for an unusual degree of insight into the creation and performance of new work. 

Alarm Will Sound is the resident ensemble at the Mizzou International Composers Festival. Held each July at the University of Missouri in Columbia, the festival features eight world premieres by early-career composers. In 2013—14, Alarm Will Sound served as artists-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Alarm Will Sound may be heard on eighteen recordings, including For George Lewis | Autoshchediasms, their most recent release featuring music of Tyshawn Sorey, and the premiere recording of Steve Reich’s Radio Rewrite. Acoustica, their genre-bending, critically acclaimed album, features live-performance arrangements of music by electronica guru Aphex Twin.

Called "thrilling" by the Guardian and "arrestingly beautiful" by the New Yorker, Donnacha Dennehy’s music has featured in festivals and venues such as the Berliner Festspiele; Edinburgh International Festival; Beethovenfest, Bonn; Royal Opera House, London; Carnegie Hall, New York; Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam; Barbican, London; the Huddersfield Festival and BAM, New York among others. In addition to a trilogy of operas with the writer Enda Walsh, recent large-scale works include Land of Winter for Alarm Will Sound, Tessellatum, a microtonally shifting 40-minute piece for strings, The Hunger, a docu-cantata, and a violin concerto for Augustin Hadelich that has received performances in Europe and the US. The Konzerthaus Orchester gave the German premiere, conducted by Joanna Mallwitz, at MusikFest Berlin in the Autumn of 2023. Portrait albums of his music have been released by Nonesuch, New Amsterdam, Cantaloupe, NMC, and Bedroom Community.  He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021 and is now a professor at Princeton University.