11.02.2024 | 10pm

BBC Two

Úna Monaghan explores the opportunities that arise when traditional folk music is confronted with new ideas, breaking all the rules.

A new feature-length documentary follows the Belfast harpist, composer and sound engineer as she records her latest experimental album, Aonaracht. Úna has spent a lifetime steering the course between science and art, examining the intersections between Irish traditional music, experimental music, improvisation and interactive technologies. Influenced by the work of John Cage, Úna has made the form her own.

Aonaracht is one of her most ambitious projects to date, and Úna must now convince other top traditional musicians to embrace the art form she is pioneering: recording an album of solo performances with electronics.

From 07.03.2024
Film Installation
Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris

A film about hurling. About the parallels between music and sport. About trying to be several things at once. And about combining genres and practices.

Úna Monaghan - harp & electronics
Éanna Monaghan - bassoon
Matthew Jacobson- drums

Hurler - Jonjo Farrell

Commissioned by Improvised Music Company & Moving on Music as part of the BAN BAM Award 2020/21

20.03.2024 | 7pm & 9pm
Performance
Somerset House Studios, London

Somerset House Studios artist Vivienne Griffin presents a new live performance work in collaboration with harper Úna Monaghan. Through polarising sonic textures, Griffin’s score for harp competes with noise and electronic distortion.

A symbol of resistance to the British occupation of Ireland, and at one time banned, the harp is an instrument that speaks to emancipation. This new work begins as a meditation on a single note and repeated motifs, building towards a collapse of order.

24.03.2024 | 3pm - 12am
Silent Green, Berlin

Engineering Jennifer Walshe’s Ireland: A Dataset.

Experimental vocal group Tonnta will be joined by saxophonist Nick Roth along with sound engineering from Úna Monaghan and lighting from Aedín Cosgrove, the group coming together to deliver Walshe's boisterous radiophonic play exploring Irish identity through issues of nationalism, representation, and inclusion.

A narrative featuring visual imagery, musical accompaniment, projections and radio drama routines, Ireland: A Dataset is an intrepid attempt to discern Ireland in a time when everything from its landscapes to its identities have been idealised, appropriated, and remixed beyond recognition.

Éiríocht is an international series presenting New Music from Ireland as a radical alternative to perceived notions of ‘Irishness‘.

03.04.2024
Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris

Síle Denvir voice
Úna Monaghan harp and electronics
Ceri Owen piano

In March 2019 Docs Ireland commissioned Úna Monaghan to produce a new live soundtrack performance to the classic Irish documentary Man of Aran. The film, made in 1934, is a blend of documentary and fictional narrative from pioneering filmmaker Robert Flaherty, depicting the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands. The soundtrack is largely improvised, and like the film, is a juxtaposition of elements: some fabricated, some imagined and some true.

More information on Of Aran Trio here

11.04.2024 | 5pm
20 Years of SARC - Concert
The Sonic Lab, Belfast

Twenty years ago composer Karlheinz Stockhausen officially opened the SARC building on the occasion of being awarded a honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast. Stockhausen’s ideas on immersive sound were key influences for the design of the Sonic Lab, the brain child of Michael Alcorn.

Twenty years on, SARC has organically evolved to explore numerous research avenues in immersion, interaction, inclusivity, urban space, performance, composition and scholarship. Today’s event celebrates SARC’s history with works and performances by PhD alumni.

Apr - May 2024
Ennis, Cork, Dublin, Belfast

Heralded as a “supergroup within new music circles in Ireland” by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Stone Drawn Circles inhabits a new space in Irish contemporary music. In their relatively short existence as a group, the ensemble’s first season includes performances at prestigious festivals including HCMF, New Music Dublin and a PRS Beyond Borders tour of the UK. The players believe in rich composer/performer dialogues and in the bending of traditional performance dynamics, which is evident in their debut season offering.

Summer 2024 - New commission for Ulster Orchestra

21.11.2023 | 1pm
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
Phipps Hall, Huddersfield, UK

A piece investigating at least three things at once: how a musician comes to be, what we carry with us, band dynamics, and humour.

New commission for Stone Drawn Circles: Úna Monaghan, with Emily DeDakis and Stone Drawn Circles


Premiere 21 November 2023 at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

This is the first performance by new contemporary music ensemble Stone Drawn Circles
Stone Drawn Circles Website

Composition + Performance

14.11.2023 | 8.15pm
Cork International Film Festival
Triskel, Cork

Premiere of new documentary by Damian McCann following Úna’s work for two years, including the making of her album Aonaracht for traditional musicians and electronics.

”January, this year, saw the release of Belfast harpist Úna Monaghan's debut album Aonaracht. Coming from the traditional Irish music background, it finds the musician, composer and Gaeilgeoir expanding beyond her native hinterland to explore the possibilities that might arise by combining the latest technological tools with the element of chance.

Her journey is captured from its onset in August 2021. Along the way she is joined by a variety of collaborators, amongst them, Iarla Ó Lionaird, Kevin Murphy, Paddy Glackin, Saileog Ní Cheannabháin, Pauline Scanlon and Jack Talty.”

Film

17.11.2023 - 24.11.2023
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

Creative Engineering

19.10.2023 | 8pm
IMRAM Festival
Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin

New bi-lingual performance for IMRAM poetry festival. A multi-media exploration of the theme of climate emergency, through the responses of individual artists.

Premiere 19th October 2023

Vivienne Griffin (visuals)
Matthew Jacobson (percussion)
Nandi Jola (poetry)
Nithy Kasa (poetry)
Úna Monaghan (harp, electronics, composition)
Nóirín Nic Alastair (sculpture)
Daithí Ó Muirí (poetry)
Cuan Ó Seireadáin (horn)
Róisín Sheehy (poetry)


Composition + Performance