Management:
The same administration team runs Unit 44 and all other aspects of Kirkos


Our artistic director & founder is Sebastian Adams

Our general manager is Paul Scully

Our event producer is Alice Quinn Banville

Our marketing manager is Isabella Utria Mago



Our ensemble revolves around a core group of musicians who have been playing together since our student days:

  • Hannah Miller (Horn) 

  • Jane Hackett (Violin)

  • Miriam Kaczor (Flute)

  • Robert Coleman (Harmonium / Melodica)

  • Sebastian Adams (Viola)

  • Yseult Cooper Stockdale (Cello)

Joan Sommers Donnelly (Visual Arts / Performance)


Almost all of our projects also rely on people not listed here—we collaborate widely!



Sebastian Adams (b. 1991) is an Irish composer, performer and artistic director with wide-ranging interests that include experimental text pieces, early music and artificial intelligence. Recent commissions include the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Music Network, both RTÉ orchestras, and the Beckett Chamber Music and East Cork Early Music festivals. His music is performed regularly by leading Irish musicians.  Performances abroad include Paris, Montreal, Vienna, Cologne, Potsdam, Antwerp and Görlitz, and his music has been broadcast on radio across the European Union. He was Composer in Residence for RTÉ lyric fm in 2016/17. In 2017 he represented Ireland in the International Rostrum of Composers. 

Besides this, Sebastian produces computer-generated notated music which can be ‘written’ and sight-read mid-concert. A significant aspect of Sebastian’s creative output is as an organiser, curator and advocate of new music. His ensemble Kirkos has become a leading light of the Irish scene, providing a vital arena for the most exciting young composers in the country and exploring the gamut of the most experimental and striking music written in our time. Projects include Dublin’s first Fluxus Happening, multi-sensory concerts in total darkness, and many Irish premieres of important international works. He is also Co-director of Fishamble Sinfonia, specializing in baroque and early classic repertoire, and former Chair of the Irish Composers Collective. He has organised the premieres of well over 400 pieces.

As a viola player Sebastian has premiered many solo and chamber works, and enjoys working closely with composers on their new music. He has improvised in Dublin, Bern, La Chaux de-Fonds, New York and London, including in live theatre, and performs early music on viola and gamba.Sebastian studied in Dublin (Kevin O’Connell & Jonathan Nangle) and Vienna (Karlheinz Essl). His most recent viola teacher was Simon Aspell (The Vanbrugh). 

Robert Coleman completed his Masters studies at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague with Yannis Kyriakides and Diderik Wagenaar in June 2019. A previous graduate of UCD School of Architecture his research while at the Hague focused on ‘musical object’. This concept filters into much of his current work where spatial setups are used to provide listeners with multiple perspectives of the same material. As a result recent work has also included site-specific, installation and audiovisual configurations. In May 2019 he directed Dune Works, a site specific event for James Turrell’s Celestial Vault in Kijkduin, the Netherlands, which included his work ‘How many sides do you see?’ performed by the Dutch ensemble But What About. 

Highly active in artistic direction he is a founding member (co-director 2013-2017) and now artistic advisor of the Dublin based Kirkos. Robert also held the position of secretary of the Irish Composers Collective from 2015-2017, a collective of country-wide composers who present work by their members through monthly concerts with established contemporary performers.

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).
Yseult Cooper Stockdale enjoys a career of unusual variety. Her interests range widely from experimental performance and the championing of new music, to working with every orchestra in the ROI as well as performing frequently as a highly-regarded chamber musician.

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.
Establishing herself as one of the most versatile flautists in Ireland, Miriam Kaczor is equally at home on modern, historical and contemporary instruments. She plays principal flute with the Irish Baroque Orchestra, has guested as principal with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra and was recently invited to tour as first flute with Bach Gesellschaft Potsdam. As a soloist she has appeared with the RTE Concert Orchestra, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Esker Festival Orchestra and Dublin Orchestral Players, with several live broadcasts on RTE radio. Passionate about chamber music, Miriam has played at the Killaloe, Westport, Monkstown, Clonmel, Sligo, Kilkenny, East Cork and New Music Dublin festivals as well as the National Concert Hall series, sharing stage with Camerata Kilkenny, Collegium Marianum, Ensemble Marsyas, Vanbrugh Quartet, Wilbert Hazelzet, Una Hunt, Isabelle O'Connell, Joachim Roewer, Geraldine O'Doherty and others. She has been a member of Kirkos Ensemble since 2012, premiering numerous pieces in venues of every shape and form around Ireland. She has recorded with Crash Ensemble and collaborated with the Contemporary Music Centre, bringing contemporary Irish music to audiences at home, in the UK, New York and Beijing.

Miriam was the Irish Freemasons' Young Musician of the Year 2015, recipient of the inaugural RDS Jago Award, Flax Trust Bursary and multiple prizes in the ESB Feis Ceoil. She was a pupil of William Dowdall at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Michael Cox, Lisa Beznosiuk and Rachel Brown in London and will begin studying for her MA with Erwin Klambauer of the Wiener Symphoniker this October. She has had memorable masterclass encounters with Sir James Galway, William Bennett, Peter-Lukas Graf and Felix Renggli, among others. She was a Britten-Pears Young Artist for 3 years, working with artists such as Semyon Bychkov, Mark Padmore and Phillippe Herreweghe, and a scholarship participant of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra Institute in Toronto, mentored by Claire Guimond.

Miriam is grateful for the support of Music Network funded by the Arts Council and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht & South Dublin County Council.
Horn player Hannah Miller embodies an exquisite blend of international artistry, having grown up in Ireland; attained her Bachelor degree at Finland’s Sibelius Academy; and recently graduating with a Master’s degree from New York’s Juilliard School, where she was awarded with the William Schuman Prize for outstanding achievement in music and leadership.

Since being appointed Associate Principal Horn with the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Finland at age 21, Hannah has shone as an orchestral musician, heard with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Irish Chamber Orchestra and Tapiola Sinfonietta and most recently joining the Verbier Festival Orchestra. Through these orchestras she has worked with conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Fabio Luisi, Valery Gergiev, Itzhak Perlman, Leif Segerstam and Alan Pierson. As a soloist she has been heard in concerti by Strauss, Schumann and Vivaldi.

As a member of the Irish contemporary music group Kirkos Ensemble, she has been featured in solo and chamber music concerts performing a wide range of modern works. Hannah’s commitment to new music has expanded in recent years to include performances with Crash Ensemble in Ireland, London and Amsterdam and with Ulysses Ensemble in collaboration with Ensemble InterContemporain, IRCAM and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France as part of the ManiFeste Festival. 
Jane Hackett is a professional violinist from Dublin. Since completing her MA Performance at the University of Limerick in 2017, she performs regularly with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Ireland, Musici Ireland, Wexford Festival Opera, as well as numerous freelance orchestras. With a passion for engaging new audiences with classical music, Jane is co-founder of a high quality chamber collective, ‘ReClassified’, has established a collaborative partnership with Danish dancer, Alice Presencer and has created the children’s educational resource, ‘Kids Classical Club’. As a member of Kirkos Ensemble since 2013, Jane has participated in several experimental performances and projects, working with many of Ireland’s leading composers.
Joan Somers Donnelly