DMARC and CMC Ireland are delighted to announce the 2026 recipients of the Sonic Arts Residency at University of Limerick EMS
The Digital Media and Arts Research Centre and the Contemporary Music Centre are delighted to announce the recipients of the 2026 Sonic Arts Residencies at the University of Limerick Electronic Music Studio.
The 2026 CMC/DMARC Sonic Arts Residencies have been awarded to Irish artists Elis Czerniak and Sharon Phelan and Croatian artist Tomislav Oliver. Each artist will each spend ten days developing their creative practice at ULEMS with access to its world-class facilities, including a 32-channel immersive sound lab and makerspace, a bespoke Buchla 200e synthesiser, and fully-equipped recording studios with a wide selection of microphones and production hardware and software.
The artists will receive a travel and accommodation bursary as part of their award, in addition to an honorarium of €1000 provided by the Contemporary Music Centre. There will be an outreach element to each residency, providing an insight into each artist’s individual practice and offering an opportunity for the public to engage with their projects.
The assessment panel was deeply impressed by the diversity and quality of the applications received for the CMC/DMARC Sonic Arts Residency from artists nationally and internationally. We extend our sincere gratitude to all applicants and acknowledge the considerable time and effort invested in each submission. However we are delighted to congratulate artists Eliz Czerniak, Tomislav Oliver and Sharon Phelan, who proposed unique and ambitious projects that engage thoughtfully with all that ULEMS has to offer. We look forward to supporting them in this experimental, creative process.
Jürgen Simpson, Director, Digital Media & Arts Research Centre, University of Limerick.
Photo: The University of Limerick Electronic Music Studio.
Meet the 2026 CMC/DMARC Sonic Art Residency Awardees
Elis Czerniak is a composer, producer and sound designer based in Dublin, Ireland. Coming from a trained background in multi-instrumental performance, Elis now transfers this knowledge to his creative practice. He holds a BA, MA and PhD in instrumental and electronic composition from the Royal College of Music London, and Trinity College Dublin respectively. Currently he lectures and supervises on the BA Music Degree at Trinity College, and both the BA and MA music degrees at BIMM University. As a composer he has had his pieces played throughout Ireland and Europe. He has also performed his own works, solo and with others throughout Ireland, the U.K., Europe and the U.S. As a producer, he has over fifteen years of experience recording and mixing both his own work and others, primarily Alarmist and Halves, whose album 'It Goes, It Goes, Forever and Ever' was nominated for 2010 Irish Choice Music Award. Elis also works as a sound designer for audiovisual mediums (online platforms, installations, theatre, live events), implementing composition, foley, production and mastering in order to meet professional broadcasting standards.
Residency period: March 2026.
Sharon Phelan is an artist whose work spans performance, installation, writing and composition, with specific attention to sound, voice, resonance and poetics of place. Working with improvisation, field recording, voice and synthesis, Sharon has collaborated and performed with Eivind Aarset, Jeff Ballard, Natalia Beylis, Bog Bodies, Seán Carpio, Lisa Dowdall, Seán Mac Erlaine, Neil O Connor and Matthew Nolan among others. She was selected by Emily Jacir, Pádraic E. Moore, and Matt Packer for the Platform Commissions programme of the 40th EVA International. Sharon has given talks at events such as: Scoring the City (Darmstadt Summer School); Sonic Urbanism: Reverberations in a New Field (IKLECTIK); Sonic Displacements (Project Arts Centre); Loud Objects Moving Air (CRiSAP); Sounding Out the Space (GradCAM); The Sound of Memory Symposium (Goldsmith’s University London); Crafting a Sonic Urbanism (Theatrum Mundi). Forthcoming is a release with Diet of Worms and an exhibition with Brown Mountain Diamond.
Residency period: May 2026.
Tomislav Oliver (1987, Zagreb, Croatia) is a composer and musicologist whose work merges contemporary composition with underground noise and electronic music. He studied composition in Zagreb (Marko Ruždjak), Salzburg (Stephan Winkler), Barcelona (Mauricio Sotelo), Graz (Marko Ciciliani, Franck Bedrossian), and completed IRCAM’s Cursus (Pierre Jodlowski) in 2023. His output spans solo, chamber, orchestral, electronic, acousmatic, and multimedia formats, often integrating experimental film, ballet, and dance. Oliver collaborates across disciplines, notably with the B.A.K.A. collective and the NAE collective, which he founded, both dedicated to electronic and audiovisual experimentation. His music has been performed by ensembles such as Riot Ensemble, Kebyart Ensemble, ensemble recherche, Oerknal Ensemble, Cantus Ensemble, and the Zagreb Philharmonic, and by artists including Joshua Hyde, Clara Haskil Trio, Boris Brovtsyn, and Boris Andrianov. Since 2018, he has taught at the Music Academy in Zagreb, and in 2023 he became artistic director of the Music Biennale Zagreb.
Residency period: April 2026.