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Kirkos (est. 2012) is a new music group from Dublin, Ireland. As an ever
‑evolving ensemble, in recent years we have moved towards devising works together as a group. Engaging with place, environment, community and sociopolitical issues is at the heart of the ensemble’s practice. We are strongly influenced by theatre, visual art, and performance art. We have always threaded the line between experimental music and contemporary classical music, rarely doing straightforward concerts, incorporating every part of the audience’s experience into our thinking. Since forming in 2012, we have given over 200 premieres, encompassing most of Ireland’s leading composers. As a young ensemble, we are most proud of our work with newly emerging composers, and have given many Irish composers their first performances and commissions.Past highlights include:
- Beginner’s Guide to Slow Travel: A co-devised performance taking the environmental impact of touring and the possibilities of travelling differently as a starting point. Developed from Kirkos’ own slow travel journeys to venues in Huddersfield and beyond, the work explores notions of rest, energy, interspecies entanglement and collective grief, asking how music-making might adapt to a world facing climate crisis.
- To Every Action: An experimental performance at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, bringing together Fluxus works by Nam June Paik, improvisation, sonic curiosities and a floating violin. Part of the gallery’s First Thursday series, the event explored the intersections of experimental music, visual art and performance, transforming the gallery into a playful and sensory space.
- Andy Warhol: Three Times Out: A series of performances at Hugh Lane Gallery responding to the landmark Andy Warhol exhibition. Including a collaboration with artists Day Magee and Robbie Blake, the performances explored Warhol’s artistic legacy and particularly his screen printing through various parallels in experimental music, sound and performance.
- For Private Use: an online magazine, a collection of about 40 pieces created by Kirkos and 8 commissioned composers, all designed to be performed by audience members on their own terms. Available to use here.
- Music for Cranes: a site-specific, collaboratively composed performance created for the Dublin Fringe Festival, using the motif of the crane as a starting point for a reflection on the Dublin being built for our generation right now.
- Biosphere: free, outdoor-based experimental encounters. Radical works exploring our relationship with dublin’s natural and built environment as we confront the climate crisis.
- The Irish premiere of Yannis Kyriakides’ immersive opera The Buffer Zone, a study on separation which divides the audience in two parts and offers each half a different perspective on the action, a kind of abstraction of the demilitarised zone in Cyprus and of borders everywhere.
- A 2019/20 series of low-key DIY concerts making use of a temporary working space to facilitate creative concert ideas from musicians who do not have access to established venues in Dublin.
- Listening Bodies: a durational marathon co-production with the experimental choir Tonnta, taking over Smock Alley for five hours.
- Speaking of Music: a collaboration with guest-curator Andy Ingamells, loosely exploring experimental music and performance art that connects with text in innovative ways
- Body Noise Work: a landmark series of residential interdisciplinary workshops led by Jennifer Walshe, followed by a Happening in Temple Bar Gallery.
- Fluxfest: an intermedia happening exploring the Fluxus movement, incorporating over 30 works, with props including black paint, gravel and naked bodies, immersing the audience in a ‘boundaryless environment of continuous art which would seamlessly overlap’.
- Blackout: highly theatrical concerts in almost complete darkness, comprising chamber masterpieces and new solo works written in response, matched with experimental food, funded by over 80 people through FundIt.
- On the 100th anniversary of the Rite of Spring’s premiere, Kirkos unveiled a new version re-imagined for string trio and live electronic ballet, co-composed by fourteen Irish composers.
MEMBERS
Robert Coleman (Harmonium / Melodica), Joan Somers Donnelly (Voice / Performer), Jane Hackett (Violin), Miriam Kaczor (Flute), Hannah Miller (Horn), Yseult Cooper Stockdale (Cello).
He has been commissioned by Crash Ensemble and New Music Dublin, the National Concert Hall Dublin, Irish National Opera, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Tallaght Community Arts, violinist Larissa O’Grady and others.
Highly active in artistic direction he is a founding member and performer with Dublin based experimental music group Kirkos and in 2023 he founded the School of Wild Listening, a platform for the discussion and dissemination of ecological sound art. Its aim is to promote an understanding of the living world and the current challenges we face through open and accessible listening and creative sound events.
Robert has a pressing interest in interdisciplinary collaborations and has worked with various artists such as the Experimental Film Society, Pim Piët (visual artist/designer) Laura Sarah Dowdall(dancer/ choreographer with RUNNING BLIND), Mihai Cucu(visual artist), Slipdraft(lighting design) amongst others.
He has participated in various masterclasses, workshops and residencies with composers and artists such as Peter Ablinger, Jennifer Walshe, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, John Godfrey, Jorg Widmann, Jonathan Dove, Liza Lim, Houston Dunleavy, Sebastian Fagerlund, Gráinne Mulvey, Deirdre Gribbin, Andrew Hamilton, Gert Dumbar (graphic designer), Cocky Eek (visual artist/designer), EL Putnam (artist/performer), Vicky Langan (film/sound artist), David Helbich (sound artist), Amanda Coogan (performance artist), Edu Comelles (sound artist).
As a performer he has explored experimental repertoire from Irish and international artists, performing at the Hugh Lane Sundays at Noon series, Dublin Fringe 2021, New Music Dublin 2017, Kirkos: Fluxfest, Jennifer Walshe’s Aisteach, Kirkos: Body Noise Work and also in collaboration with composer/performer Andy Ingamells and Tonnta amongst others. He is also a member of QUBe, an improvised and experimental music ensemble based at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast.
Her practice is primarily concerned with examining existing social structures and creating not-yet-existing ones, using live situations as a testing ground for experiments in relating. Much of her recent work has focused on creating frameworks for playful exchange and co-creation, such as the group improvisation practice messing, the platform for collaboration You and Me and an Anger Club for girls. She has been involved in a range of collective/ensemble projects including Outlandish Theatre Platform’s Open Theatre Making Ensemble, the Truck Stop Cultural Centre, the para-institute for art and precarity (pKp), One Field Fallow, and Post/Pandemics by radical_hope.
She was a 2023 recipient of an Arts Participation Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, and is a 2023/24 Artist in Residence at Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute on the interdisciplinary research project Data Stories, which will critically map housing and property data in Dublin. Having previously collaborated with the group on several projects over the years, including The Buffer Zone and Biosphere, Joan joined Kirkos as a member in 2023.
From an extensive musical training (BA and MA degrees in solo and chamber performance), Jane’s career spans from classical concert settings with orchestras and ensembles (including National Symphony Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra, Irish National Opera, ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, London Concertante, Wexford Festival Opera and with Musici Ireland, Vanbrugh Quartet, Camerata Ireland and under conductors Maxim Vengerov, Gianandrea Noseda, Nathalie Stutzmann, Leonard Slatkin, Julian Rachlin) to creating and directing multi-faceted concerts and projects combining classical music with various other forms of art.
As violinist, Jane has performed solo with the RTE Concert Orchestra on a number of occasions, making her solo debut with them at the National Concert Hall Dublin in 2016. She has also appeared as soloist at the Carthage International World Music Festival, the Leadership Seminars Scotland, alongside acclaimed film Director, Lord David Puttnam and for living composer, Arvo Pärt. She is a proud recipient of the Lyric FM Bursary, the Individual Artist Award, Capacity and Resilience Building Award, was winner of the Maura Dowdall Concerto Competition, Colin Stavelely Award for Best String Player 2016 and is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council, Arts and Disability Ireland and Culture Ireland.
Jane’s involvement with Kirkos Ensemble has been an influential factor in the pursuit of her many artistic endeavours, giving her the space to redefine her beliefs around conceptual and standardised concert approaches. Pre Pandemic she broadcast a radio show for children, Kids Classical Club and co-founded a chamber collective, ReClassified, (classical music performances in live music venues in Dublin) both aiming to bridge the gap between performer and audience.
Combining violin playing and directing, Jane was appointed Collaborative Projects Director with chamber ensemble, Musici Ireland and Assistant Creative Director on their new production 'A Mother's Voice' as part of Triskel Art Centre's Write, Record, Perform Bursary 2022. Jane finds joy in bringing people together through Art and has begun working with members of the Deaf community to understand how we each interpret sound. She was awarded the Arts Council’s Music Project Award 2022 to devise a new silent concert experience in collaboration with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf and after acclaimed reviews, she looks forward to developing this partnership further.
Jane is a Britten Pears Young Artist.
Having been fascinated with early music for as long as she can remember, Miriam taught herself the traverso for three years before receiving an Arts Council Travel and Training Award which enabled her to take lessons in London. She now plays with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and has fond memories performing with Arcangelo, Dresdner Barockorchester, Collegium Marianum, Ex Cathedra, Camerata Kilkenny, Ensemble Marsyas and the Geminiani Ensemble. She has worked on Bach Cantata projects directed by Philippe Herreweghe and Mark Padmore and performed alongside Wilbert Hazelzet, Rachel Brown and Jana Semeradova. A dedicated teacher, she has been involved with a number of educational and outreach projects in Ireland and the UK, is a tutor for Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra and occasionally leads classes at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
Miriam graduated from the Royal Irish Academy of Music as a pupil of William Dowdall, followed by a Master's Degree at Kunstuniversität Graz with Erwin Klambauer. Among her other influential teachers were Michael Cox, Lisa Beznosiuk and Rachel Brown as well as memorable masterclass encounters with William Bennett, Peter-Lukas Graf, Sir James Galway, Lorna McGhee and Felix Renggli. She was a Britten-Pears Young Artist, member of the Grafenegg Academy and a scholarship participant of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra Institute in Toronto.
She was the winner of the Irish Freemason's Young Musician of the Year 2015, the Maura Dowdall Concerto Competition, Flax Trust Bursary recipient and a multiple Feis Ceoil prizewinner. Her career and instrument purchases have been generously supported by the Jim McNaughton Tile Style Bursary (Business to Arts), Music Network (funded by the Arts Council and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht), RDS Jago Award, South Dublin County Council, RIAM, and the Annette Halpin Award.
Hannah is currently Principal Horn with the Irish National Opera Orchestra, a member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and a Trialist with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She also performs with the Wexford Festival Opera Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, and is a former member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland and the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra in Finland.
As a member of Kirkos since 2012, she has been featured in many of their concerts and series over the years performing a wide range of experimental works. Her dedication to new music also includes performances with Crash Ensemble, Le Concert Impromptu and Ulysses Ensemble in recent years.
Hannah is the Festival Director and founder of ‘FuddleFest’, a family-run music festival based at her home in Fuddletown, Wexford which first took place in August 2020 and has gone from strength to strength in the years since. She spends all of her free time tending to her herd of goats and her flock of chickens and ducks.
Favouring more intimate ensembles, recent exciting projects included several tours with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, (working with artists such as Jorg Widmann and Kristian Bezuidenhout), and two performances at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival ( ‘22 performing Wingform by Barry O’Halpin, with Crash, and returning the following year with Kirkos, to perform twice with self-created works). She also toured, thanks to the National String Quartet Foundation, with the Spero Quartet, Ficino Ensemble, alongside the Vanbrugh, and most recently with the Ora Quartet. Other artists she has collaborated and performed with include: Bell X1, Caimin Gilmore, Kojaque, Anna Meredith, Welsh National Opera, Evlana, Southbank Sinfonia, Musici Ireland and Bastard Assignments.
Yseult has been a member Kirkos since 2013 and has performed countless premieres, including many solo cello works. She is an experienced improviser, and has worked closely with Andy Ingamells, Lina Adonovska, John Godfrey and Nick Roth. In 2022 Kirkos commissioned her to co-write and perform a large-scale cross-disciplinary work taking place in Phoenix Park. She is also the recipient of an Agility Award to develop her skills in historically-informed performance, and in her spare time likes drawing, grumbling, eating and hanging out with her cat.