Donal Sarsfield has won the prestigious Elizabeth Maconchy Composition Fellowship awarded by the Arts Council.

Sarsfield will undertake a PhD in electro-acoustic composition under David Berezan at the University of Manchester, with funding to pursue his studies for the next three years.

Besides creating a new body of works, he research title is 'The aesthetic questions arising from the ability of real-world sounds to inhabit the personal/place in acousmatic music'.

Donal Sarsfield was born in Co. Mayo. He studied composition Piers Hellawell at Queen's University Belfast, with Philip Grange and David Berezan at the University of Manchester, and also says he learned from listening to the radio and borrowing scores from libraries.

Being from the west of Ireland his music sits uncomfortably between European and American ideals and though he has no driving aesthetic, he has a strong interest in vocal and choral music.

Posted: 1 October 2009