Niamh J O’Donnell

“It’s not just sitting down in your bedroom and writing music. It’s going out, and conversing, exchanging ideas… Socialising. Having those connections and friendships, relationships with people, makes it feel so much nicer, so much more wholesome.”

Niamh J O’Donnell

Niamh J O’Donnell is a Welsh-Australian composer and artist from Aberystwyth. Inspired by literature, artwork and moving picture, she creates notational and electronic compositions for the concert hall, film, stage and immersive audio installation. Niamh’s music has been performed widely at venues and events including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, BBC Hoddinott Hall, Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru, St David’s Hall, Hallé St Peters and Prince Charles Cinema; she has composed for ensembles such as BBC NOW, the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, The Hermes Experiment, Berkeley Ensemble, UPROAR, Psappha, and the Gallos Trio. Beyond the concert hall, Niamh participated in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Film Composers Lab 2024, with guidance from film music mentors Patrick Doyle and Danai Kokogia; and wrote music for the short film I Am One, which aired on the BBC in 2021. Niamh is a composition graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, and has studied with composers including Mark Bowden, Lynne Plowman, Joseph Davies, Owen Lloyd and Mark David Boden.

Niamh was recently one of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2024/25 Young Composers, with whom her orchestral work ‘LoveHate:Reminiscence’ was premiered at the Southbank Centre in July 2025. Following the premiere, we caught up with Niamh over Zoom to discuss environmental storytelling, childhood nostalgia, video games, feminine rage, and performance as a feeling…

Zyggy/PRXLUDES: Hi Niamh! Thanks so much for chatting today. I discovered your work through the absolutely incredible ‘LoveHate:Reminiscence’, which you wrote for the London Philharmonic Orchestra this year as one of their Young Composers…

Niamh J O’Donnell: Yeah! LPO, from the get go, was so supportive and inspiring. They build you up as a creative as soon as you came into the room for the first time. We had our initial meeting in September, and [there] was a lot of excitement; it got the butterflies going, the brain going. We had a kind of show-and-tell with just the composers — Tania Leon was there, and then Lowri [Thomas] and Talia [Lash] — we went around everyone one by one, and we got to show a piece of our own music and talk about it. It was really welcoming, and quite an inspiring space to see, listen, and talk.

After this, we were talking to Tania; she’s a really inspiring individual, and really fun to talk to. She talked a lot about intuitive writing, which I follow myself — I always go with my gut when I write, what I hear in my head. I support this with technique, but first and foremost for me, it’s all about intuition. She really built on the fact that we should start with intuition first, and see where that took us.

Sometimes, you can get really overwhelmed when you start a programme — say you’re doing an undergrad, you’re doing a programme for a year — and you feel like you have to use all these techniques, do all this, do all that. When actually, you should just follow your gut a lot of the time. And support that with technique. I do that, as well: restrict yourself, use those techniques as a way to rein it in a little bit — for me at least, sometimes I can [do] a bit too much when composing. But it was a really refreshing experience, [and] a positive one for me.

I feel this a lot in my own practice, as well. I know oftentimes when we’re studying at conservatoire, we’re not necessarily taught to be intuitive, or we’re encouraged to avoid those natural impulses…

I feel like if you resonate with it, as a human being, I think others will as well. We’re going into a spiritual element here, but it’s about soul — there’s something within the music that has a soul in it, so that other people can resonate. It might not even be resonating with the same themes. It might be that someone is resonating with something else within the piece that you may not [have noticed]; or they might not agree with the programme note, but they might still feel an experience, an emotion, within it. I think that, for me, is really important. As long as someone can resonate with the music — and it creates an experience for them — as long as someone can understand it on an emotional level, I think that is what I really enjoy.

‘LoveHate:Reminiscence’ was inspired by your experiences growing up in the Australian outback. I understand that the first section of the piece utilises environmental storytelling in the percussion — can you tell me a little bit about how your experiences inspired the piece?

It’s a really funny experience, actually. This was the first time where I thought, at the beginning of creating the piece, I was like “I want it to be about this” — I want it to be about nostalgia. I even had the title from the start — oh my god, that never happens… -laughs- I’d actually written the main first melody first, and that went through a lot of revisions; but I didn’t have that first initial section. It was sitting in the back of my mind for ages, and I was like “should I, should I not? I don’t know how it’s gonna sound…” You have to hear it in your head entirely, you can’t hear it on Sibelius because of the way the textures are. But I could hear this very distinct sound in my head, and I could see it in my head. And I thought: “okay, I’m just gonna put it in, and I’m gonna see what happens.”

I really loved the sound of a brushed bass drum. It’s so fuzzy and gives such a distinct impression of dried grass — it’s perfect for it. And I really loved the temple blocks; their sound is so unique, and it made think of the sounds that you hear in the Australian Bush. My father built our house on quite a large plot of land. We were on a plain, and behind us was bush; so you could hear bush sounds from the house. The temple blocks were beautiful for that. They made me think of kookaburras; you can hear rising gestures which are quite fast — da da, da da da da da — representing the laugh of a kookaburra.

Building on that, I imagined sounds of insects: cicadas singing or crickets rubbing their legs together. I found sul pont strings performing glissandi freely a good representation for that. Where we lived, it was [also] known for being windy, so you’d hear the dry grass moving with the wind, and this was re-imagined via woodwinds and brass blowing through their instruments alongside the brushed bass drum.

It’s just building a bed. That’s where I started from, and then I started putting things on top of that, building that texture. As soon as I heard it in the workshop, I was like “that’s the one” — and everyone sat silent when we first heard it and were like “that’s the one!” -laughs- There was a universal agreement within the rehearsal — “we’re keeping this, and you’re building on top of it” — and I was like, this is it. It was such a beautiful moment, and it really resonated with me; I could see it in my head so clearly, that I had to stick with it. Trust your gut!

Did that kind of storytelling stay at the forefront of the piece throughout, or did you change or shift the material?

Once we get to the end — once the coin flips on itself — everything goes a bit drastic, themes were taken from the start and twisted. It’s this horrible, twisted version of itself. It was honestly really fun to write— writing angry music is the best. -laughs- Especially nowadays: it kind of fed itself, I didn’t even think, it just happened. I find myself thinking about it more and more, because of the way the world is at the moment… I got a lot of anger out on that bit, and it was very fun.

Tell me a bit about the collaborative process you had with the players; how did those relationships develop through the workshopping process?

Honestly, the relationship we had with the instrumentalists meant that I was able to write what I was able to write. They were very open to new techniques, trying new things, workshopping things — and discussing them as well. After the workshops, I had a lot of discussions with the percussionist and clarinettist, because there were certain things I was unsure about.

The clarinettist has a multiphonic at the end, and there was a certain kind of multiphonic I was looking for which is similar to the Magnus Lindberg concerto — there’s a moment in that where it kind of screeches, and I really love that sound. He was very insightful; he knew exactly what I was talking about. Having that support there — to be like “yep, that’s fine, we can do this” — it means that you have a lot more freedom to insert that in your music. And you feel a lot less nervous! -laughs- They’re so open to whatever kind of music you write, that you’re never gonna be scared that they won’t like it. Which is incredibly important. That doesn’t always happen. I had [a] group chat that I could go to, and everyone was so open to talk on it — talk about technique, what they’ve seen, how things should be written. Having that insight was so integral.

It’s not just sitting down in your bedroom and writing music. It’s going out, and conversing, exchanging ideas… Socialising. Having those connections and friendships, relationships with people, makes it feel so much nicer, so much more wholesome — you have this network, these people, that are uplifting you, and you’re uplifting them. That’s what music’s about: supporting each other, giving people a platform.

Another piece of yours I love was a collaboration with The Hermes Experiment, setting a text by Victor Hugo. Tell me a bit about how you started working with The Hermes Experiment?

I come from [the Welsh county of] Ceredigion, and there’s a programme called Dyfed Young Composers, which is run by Lynne Plowman. At that point, I was in my second year of conservatoire; and when the chance to compose for The Hermes Experiment comes up, you don’t say no. -laughs- I was really fascinated with Gabriel Fauré’s ‘Clair de Lune’ at the time. I’d sung it as a piece for my exams in Sixth Form, and I always had a fascination for the French language — when we moved over to Wales, we would drive down to southern France every summer, camping along the way. So every year, I was surrounded by the French language [and] culture, and absolutely adored it.

For me, when I work with text, I must resonate with the text. It just needs to have a pull to me. I like to think of scenes when I’m composing; I’ll see them in my head, and I’ll be like “okay, that’s the scene — how do I do that?” The text that I used for The Hermes Experiment is ‘La Tombe dit à la Rose’, which means “The Grave and the Rose”. It’s a Victor Hugo poem, [and] like the title suggests, it’s a conversation between a grave and a rose about life and death — it surrounds the subject of death. I think during that time, Victor’s daughter had passed away, so it’s quite an intense piece of poetry. But there’s something beautiful about it; and I thought it would be nice to see that in The Hermes Experiment.

It’s a really fascinating set of instruments — voice, harp, clarinet, double bass. How did you feel the ensemble lineup fit with your vision for the piece and your musical language?

I think that ensemble was so perfect for it. There’s a lot of space to it; the way the ensemble gives you that freedom to enjoy space. [The lineup] allows that space for the voice to come out, and to really resonate with the text; but you also have these really individualistic voices within that ensemble. Each instrument has its own voice. So it gives you a lot of versatility. And it was really fun to write!

I remember seeing The Hermes Experiment premiere an incredible piece by Lisa Robertson down in Portsmouth earlier this year. What really struck me was how much like a folk ensemble that lineup felt, even though they’re all classically trained — and each instrument has so many intricacies within it…

Yeah! I think that’s a really cool way of thinking about it. With folk music, it’s not like classical music, in the sense that: this is an orchestra, this is a chamber ensemble, this has this, this, this… Every ensemble is slightly different with folk music, everyone comes together and has a good time. That’s a really good way of saying it with Hermes… You would never have thought to put those instruments together, but once they are, it’s just perfect.

Tell me a bit about the music you were surrounded with growing up in Australia and Wales — was folk music something that was important to you?

When we were in Australia, we went to church every Sunday, because a lot of the time, that was where the community was. And so I was raised up on hymns. I really enjoyed singing them — I really enjoyed singing, that was probably my first instrument.

I’m the youngest of five. I saw a lot of my older siblings start bagpipes; we had a bagpipe band back in [the] outback, in our little town. We would see them do their march in the town; and so I had a lot of practicing in the house at that time. Some of my siblings also took up piano, as well— and obviously, when you see your older sibling play it, you also wanna play it… -laughs- I actually started off with piano via listening to tunes. I had a LeapPad — do you remember LeapPads?

I think it’s a distant memory in my head.

It was like an electronic pad; you put one of the books down, and there was a little stylus pen and you’d click on certain things. There was a music book — there were different tunes in this music book — you’d take the stylus and click on it, and it would play the tune. It’s like an interactive book, and it was really stimulating. This is a core memory… I would take that little book to the piano, I would listen to it, and then try to work it out and play it on the piano. That’s when my mum saw me and was like “you’re getting piano lessons!”

We only lived in Australia until I was about 5 or 6, and then we moved over to Wales. Even though they’re both English-speaking countries, it’s still quite a big culture shock. But because I was young enough, I kind of embraced the culture. When we moved over to Wales, I started learning violin, and then did piano — and carried on singing. In Wales, we have a thing called an eisteddfod. There’s a few of them: you’ve got your local eisteddfods, you’ve got eisteddfod yr urdd [trans. Youth Eisteddfod], and then you’ve got Eisteddfod Genedlaethol — the Welsh national eisteddfod. I didn’t resonate with any of the English-speaking schools in the region of Wales where we lived, so I ended up going to a Welsh-speaking school. Then I took part in these eisteddfods, singing a lot; and then my year 3 teacher — she still talks to my mum, and she is my biggest fan… -laughs- She really supported my musicianship a lot. Every lunchtime, we would have a singing lesson for half an hour, and she would organise for me to take part in these eisteddfod yr urdd in primary school; she would drive me to the competitions. She was and still is one of my biggest supporters.

And then we did choir — everyone did choir. And then you had the county orchestra, which I joined when I was in year 6! I kept in that, even when I was in secondary school. So when I was growing up in Wales, I had such a good musical community where I was. I was very, very lucky with my community.

Was there any particular moment you discovered composition, or realised you wanted to write music?

I started thinking about composition when I was about 16. I was doing my GCSE in music, and I really liked the compositional element, I really liked the performative part… I didn’t like the exams. -laughs- I really enjoyed creating, and I really enjoyed the fact I could make something entirely new and make it my own. I was fascinated with game music at the time — I still am! A lot of [my] influences were Legend of Zelda, [and] the score of Journey — the score was by Austin Wintory, and he was a massive influence for me at the time. And because we had orchestra, I was in love with Dvorak and Tchaikovsky; those were the big two I really loved playing and listening to.

I actually tried out for the National Youth Orchestra of Wales composition course when I was 16. I didn’t get it. -laughs- And I tried out again when I was 17, and I got in! [It was] led by the lovely Mark Bowden; he’s the loveliest human, and he’s such a good teacher and composer — he’s so cool. He was so lush to work with. In the audition, we actually had to bring our own instruments and perform some short compositions that we’d made; so it wasn’t just “sit down, write this”. It was still interacting with a physical instrument as well as composing.

When we went on the course in the summer, we were given a chamber orchestra — and we were appointed certain [instruments]. I was given a trombone concertino, which is crazy! It was performed by my friend from school who was also taking part, and he’s an amazing trombone player. It was so cool. We were sat in a room, composing, for a week; but also interacting with the ensemble, with the instrumentalists. And it was really intense — because we had to compose these pieces in a week, and then rehearse, and then we were given the opportunity to conduct them! Mark taught us how to conduct — I loved conducting, I still love it now.

Mark Bowden was probably one of the reasons I went for conservatoire after that. He was so supportive, really knowledgeable, and really made you feel confident about your work — made you feel like you were able to accomplish it. And obviously, I did — the piece was performed! That was the turning point for me, where I thought “if I want to stay in music, this is the way to do it” — and I never looked back after that.

I can understand how you’ve developed this “collaboration-first” mentality with performers, right? When so much of your development has revolved around collaborations with performers and music communities.

I think it’s also a feeling. When I used to perform, whenever I sang, it felt really nice — even when it wasn’t “nice” material. There was this gut feeling, like butterflies. It felt so good to be able to express yourself through music. Whenever I feel that a theme or texture or chordal sequence is good, is if I get that gut feeling — that butterflies in my stomach feeling. Even with angry, scary music. You nod the head, you physically get into it. Like an instrumentalist — when you know they’re really into it, their whole physicality changes. It’s something rather magical to witness; it’s like a personality change. I’d say it’s like magic to watch that happen.

We’ve talked a little bit about intuitive processes and working with that gut feeling — can you tell me a bit about what that looks like for you, in your compositional process?

It’s kind of like synesthesia. Things like emotions — if I want to portray a certain kind of emotion — colour really comes into it. And that will translate to harmony. When I think about the colour green, for example, I think about modal music; because it’s got that association with nature, and I associate nature with modal [music] — mainly dorian. -laughs- So it’s those avenues which my brain takes. And then I’ll think “okay, dorian mode”, and I’ll have a play about on my piano. And sometimes, the harmony may change — it may become a warped version of dorian, or it might start on dorian and change to something else. Sometimes, I like to make my own pitch sets for certain things, because it’s easier for me to translate exactly what I want to do. I don’t like to feel restricted within traditional harmony.

Do you feel like that translates into your approach to orchestration, as well?

If I’ve got the material sorted, and the harmony’s written, then I’ll start to hear where things are supposed to be. With LPO — that melody on top was immediately going to be clarinet. I knew it was going to be clarinet, because it’s really good at conveying personality — that kind of childlike joy — and the sine wave-iness of the sound, I suppose, is what makes me think that way. It’s such a versatile instrument.

I’ll hear these different layers within the different sections of the orchestra. Maybe [I’ll] tweak it if it needs to be tweaked, but it usually comes out the way I hear it. After that’s done, I’ll add decoration on top: if a certain family’s not playing, I’ll think “can you add decoration, can you add a bit of sparkle, can you add a bit of texture to that?” So that’s the general vibe that I go for with orchestral writing.

I get that. I’m reminded of your piece ‘Five Windows’, which toured with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales last year…

That was a really interesting one. It took a year to write, because I did it for my final composition portfolio way back in 2021. I had actually restricted myself with a pitch set I created, and I was really particular with it; tried to get as many different kinds of intervals as possible. I used the tone row technique — put the pitch set into a row, started each [row] on each note of the pitch set — I ended up with six boxes, all with their own of six different rows. That restriction enabled me to think a lot harder about everything else.

I was really interested in Wassily Kandinsky and Georges Braque’s artwork at the time. I really liked how they evolved — you could see the evolution within their artworks. I went through a whole heap of both of their artworks, and took out the ones I could see would work with an orchestral setting. I gravitated to artworks which triggered this synesthesia, and I could already imagine the music on top. I went with my gut feeling, as well. I ended up with five particular paintings — all of them quite different from each other — and that’s why it’s called ‘Five Windows’.

It was really fun to write! Because I had that restriction of a tone row and pitch set, I didn’t necessarily have to think so hard about creating new harmony — because the harmony was all basically there. It was all about texture and colour. Obviously, with the different colours on the artworks, I could see that, and I could hear that. So it was just planning that out on the score. It was like a puzzle that I needed to solve. It’s probably the hardest piece I’ve written so far… -laughs-

How do you balance those more technical challenges you set for yourself with the more intuitive approach — or do they marry together inherently?

I think they definitely marry together. Because you have that restriction there, you’re hearing it over and over, your brain is trying to figure out how that is going to work into a piece. I think you naturally start to hear melody, or motifs, within the scale [and] within the tone rows. For example, ‘Five Windows’… the main theme at the start is just the tone row, when I first wrote it out! And it was perfect: it was a little bit weird, a little bit chaotic — which I love. The intuition starts to go through that restriction. I think people don’t restrict themselves enough sometimes. I think restriction is key; I think less is more. -laughs-

Do you feel like your own understanding of performance practice has an influence on this balance, as well?

It definitely does nowadays. It took a lot of learning; it didn’t come naturally, it didn’t come instantly. I think when you start composition, there’s some sort of naivety there, where you think “I’ll put this on paper, and they’ll play it” — and that’s not the case. -laughs- I will normally write out the music as is, and then I’ll go back on it and question it — try and put myself in the position of a performer — and think “is this realistic, is this possible?”. You have to situate yourself in the moment; it helps you to visualise.

It’s interesting, this idea of putting yourself in the position of the performer — because another part of your practice involves creating and performing electronic music. I’m thinking of your sound installation ‘H.E.R.’, which took place at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama…

I was in my cheesy era… -laughs- I had this whole journey out in my head — kind of like a video game. I’d love to turn it into a game, maybe in the future. I had these kind of visuals in my mind; I really wanted ‘H.E.R.’ to be a sonic experience that everyone could imagine themselves in, and maybe imagine different things at the same time — as long as they go through the journey.

There were found sounds and soundscapes on top of the music; and on top of that, it was a lot of problem solving — because this was when lockdowns were still a thing, but we were allowed to go back to conservatoire. We were allowed to use the facilities, but we had to use them in a way that was covid-friendly. -laughs- We could have live instrumentalists on stage, but for what I wanted to, I couldn’t really do that; so it’s all music written by me, but pre-recorded.

In that project, there was also a staging element. I really enjoyed lighting. There was this specific installation I saw in Estonia, when I went to see the ISCM World New Music Days festival; someone had rigged up a lighting system where it would react to music, and I was like “that’s so cool! I wanna do it” — but I wasn’t able to figure it out, so I also made a sketch for the lighting designer who I collaborated with to choreograph the lighting live. We were figuring out the colour schemes, how that’s distributed within the space, how it’s going to immerse people within the space.

Do you feel like your compositional process shifts when you’re working with electronic music, as opposed to notated music?

I think it does. In a really weird way, the scenes in my head become more 3D. For me, when I think about notated music in my head, and I see certain things, it gives me Wes Anderson — in the colour palette, and the way that it’s filmed. Whereas with electronic music, it is more immersive, 3D… a bit cleaner, smoother imagery, I’d say. More CGI, in a sense.

The way that things are composed within electronics, I would say, are a lot more fluid. You’re not writing music down, essentially — you don’t have the visual music, the note heads — so a lot more intuitive writing does come out in that. It’s a lot freer; you can restrict yourself, but I tend not to. I very much like to use found sounds — I love soundscapes, I really love making something that people can dive into audio-wise. ‘H.E.R.’ was 360 — it was surround sound — so everywhere you faced, it was a different sound or experience.

If there is a sound that really intrigues me, I’ll go with it. With my piece ‘FM.AM.’, I was really obsessed with radio sounds — the fuzziness of it. It’s not like when you listen to something on Spotify, and it’s super clean; it’s got that texture there. I was really obsessed with that. So I took that texture, and I made my own radio sounds — sitting in my room, with a Zoom recorder, fiddling on an old radio lent to me by the Composition department. -laughs- A lot of those textures are from the same recording. Again, it’s building a bed, building on top of that.

Do you still feel like working with electronics throws at you the same kinds of puzzles as working with orchestration?

It’s less so figuring out a puzzle; it’s more building a whole new world for yourself. When you’re doing performances, you can think about spatialisation: don’t just have to do a regular stereo PA system — you could dot speakers around in certain positions, you can be a bit more experimental with their location. You can be really specific with which sounds go through which channels. You can create such an intriguing experience for people, and something they honestly haven’t heard before — which is very exciting.

Earlier when we discussed ‘LoveHate:Reminiscence’, you mentioned a kind of anger fuelling the end of the piece. Are you comfortable talking about how you channel anger and frustration in your work?

I think it’s in every little thing I do. There was a term I used in the LPO score, which was “goblin-like”… That kind of ties into this. A lot of people have been using the term “goblin mode”, but that’s not what I’m talking about — this is a personal thing for me. When I say things like goblin energy, it ties in with feminine rage, and frustrations, and dark humour; defying societal norms, defying stereotype, defying convention. I think within music, we can really do a lot of that.

With ‘LoveHate:Reminiscence’, the second half of it — when it gets quite violent — that’s the feminine rage coming out. You know, certain things are happening these days — restrictions on female autonomy etc. — and it is incredibly frustrating to see that in a society where we should be evolving, we’re not in terms of human rights. The only way I can get that frustration out would be through music. It was the perfect opportunity to do that — with the fact that I can’t go back to a time where I didn’t have to think about that, where none of that mattered to me. I’d love to not think about that, just for a day, but unfortunately, we only move forward.

Are there any other projects you’ve done that explicitly explore this anger and frustration?

The Red Ribbon Project — it was about destigmatizing conversations and education around HIV/AIDS. It was a project which aimed to educate people around that. It was probably one of the hardest projects I’ve been on, because I wanted to do it justice — I wanted to do as much as I could do to get the word out, in the name of so many people who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS.

I worked really closely with the project manager, Gonçalo Fernandes, and the artists on that project; I wanted to make sure I touched every aspect of the project. Movement I was a prelude, and Movement II was ‘Elegy’ — written in the name of people who lost their lives to the disease. That needed to be at the start. Then it was ‘Dance’, loosely influenced by Frank O’Hara’s poem, At The Old Place — it was about self-expression, having a moment to feel like yourself in gay bars at the time. Frank O’Hara talks about dances like cha-cha and rumba, so I wanted to pay homage to that. But I also wanted to bring in the 21st-Century equivalent of dance, and what people nowadays would be experiencing in clubs as a young queer individual.

The fourth [movement] was ‘Touch Starved’. This was one I really wanted to do right. When you’re thinking about the AIDS crisis, you think about people [who] were isolated in these wards; they weren’t allowed to touch anyone, they weren’t allowed to see anyone. They were starved on touch — and I wanted to have a moment to focus in on that.

The fifth movement, ‘Tabloids’, was based on the media storm that happened — all the propaganda, the fear-mongering they did during that time. It was a hate storm. If you look back at the adverts during that time, it’s horrible. ‘Tabloids’ was inspired by a piece created by the visual artist Darren Varnam, and is written from the perspective of [a] young boy, seeing the misinformation within the newspapers, on the TV, and his reaction to these intense and confusing propagandic articles. And then ‘Hope’ [the final movement] is an homage to the research and development that has been going on; that has helped many, many people live their lives normally with HIV. It’s an homage to the ongoing research that’s happening, that will hopefully help destigmatize open discussion and education around it. A lot of people were and are still affected by it — be it LGBTQ+ or Cis individuals.

I get that. Being able to harness the power of this medium we work in to actively make a difference, contribute to society. It’s so important we have the space to have these conversations.

Yeah. I think the artistic environment, and community, should always be a safe space. No matter who you are, no matter how you present yourself, music is the language — and music should always be presented foremost.

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Learn more about Niamh and her compositional practice:

• https://www.niamhjodonnellcomposer.com/
• https://soundcloud.com/niamhjodonnell
• https://www.instagram.com/njodonnell_composer/

References/Links:

• Magnus Lindberg – Clarinet Concerto (2002)
• Gabriel Fauré – Clair de Lune (1888)
• Victor Hugo, ‘La tombe dit à la Rose’, from Les Voix Intérieures (1837)
• Austin Wintory – Journey (2013)
• Frank O’Hara, ‘At the Old Place’ (1955)