Caitríona Ní Dhubhghaill

Caitríona Ní Dhubhghaill
(b. 1975)
Caitríona Ní Dhubhghaill
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Caitríona Ní Dhubhghaill was born in Dublin in 1975. She learned sean nós singing from Pádraigín Ní Mhaoláin at Scoil Naithí, and studied piano with Audrey Chisholm, theory with Annette Perry, and flute with Rosemary Hill at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She began composing in 1992. Her first composition, Dutch Elm (a setting of a poem by her father, Gréagóir Ó Dúill), was performed by the National Chamber Choir on radio and television in 1993. She studied Music and German at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1998 with first class honors; she gained a teaching diploma in piano (A.R.I.A.M.) with honours in the same year. She taught piano and theory at Dún Laoghaire Music Centre while undertaking research at Trinity College Dublin which lead to a Ph.D. in German literature, awarded in 2005.

Her Irish-language setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, Cainticí Mhuire agus Shimeoin (2000), was awarded best Irish-language entry in the 2001 RTÉ Church Music competition. Since then, this work has become part of the repertoire of Christ Church Cathedral Choir and the Mornington Singers and has been performed both in Ireland and abroad. The Cork International Choral Festival Pilib Ó Laoghaire trophy was awarded to the Mornington Singers in 2004 and 2005 for their performances of Caitríona's Caintic Mhuire and An raibh tú ar an gcarraig (2004). She has been commissioned by RTÉ, Foras na Gaeilge, Cumann Gaelach na hEaglaise, Cairde Cheangal Dhá Chultúr and the Mornington Singers. First performances in 2007 have included Kyrie/Gloria (National Chamber Choir), Sanctus (Mornington Singers) and Freagraí le haghaidh Urnaí na Nóna (2002, performed by the Christ Church Cathedral Choir).

Her compositional interest in choral music is nourished by her commitment to choral singing. She has sung in the Irish Youth Choir and the Domchor München, was a choral scholar of Trinity College Chapel choir while a student, and went on to be a stipendiary singer at Christ Church Cathedral. Since 2001 she has been a member of the vocal octet Res Nova. Much of her work seeks a productive synergy between the Irish folk idiom and the broader tradition of Western choral writing. Her text-driven settings of key texts of the sacred choral tradition – the Mass Ordinary, canticles, responses, and psalms – often choose the Irish versions of these texts. Caitríona Ní Dhubhghaill currently lives in Vienna.

(biography © Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland)

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