sound, Scotland, The Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland, and Festival Ensemble(s) are delighted to announce the participants for LEGATO: Laura Heneghan, Paul Scully, John Aulich, Monika Dalach Sayers, Anne Castex and Vincent Portes.
LEGATO is a new international composer professional development programme devised by partner organisations across three countries - Sound Festival Scotland, the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland, New Music Dublin and Festivals Ensemble (comprising Ensemble 2e2m, Cairn, Court-circuit, Multilatérale and Sillages).
Following an open call for participants, two emerging composers have been selected from each of these three areas. Over the course of the 14-month programme, the six artists will discover new music from each other’s countries, write new work under the guidance of composer mentors Jérôme Combier and Laura Bowler, and have their works performed at festivals in Bagnolet, Dublin and Aberdeen.
LEGATO is supported by Diaphonique, the Franco-British-Irish fund for contemporary music.
Meet the Artists:
Laura Heneghan
Laura Heneghan (b.1999) is an Irish composer and pianist who predominantly composes chamber and vocal works. Laura’s work has been performed throughout the UK and Ireland by notable groups such as Chamber Choir Ireland, Gaia Duo, Con Anima Chamber Choir, Contempo Quartet, Irish Chamber Brass and Dutch-Hungarian Duo Rosanne Phillippens and Zoltán Fejérvari. She has had work performed at the Cork International Choral Festival, Sound Festival, West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival, RCS Plug Festival for New Music, University of St. Andrews and the Emily Anderson Concert Hall in the University of Galway. Laura has received numerous accolades for her compositional work, including the Seán Ó Riada Composition Competition 2023, the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival’s Emerging Composer Competition for Brass Quintet 2023, and was shortlisted finalist for the 6th Peter Rosser Award. She is currently a participant in the CMC’s Emerging Composer Scheme. Laura completed her Bachelor of Arts degree (Music) at the University of Galway in 2022, where she worked on her compositions with Dr Amanda Feery. Soon after, she relocated to Glasgow to pursue master’s studies in composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where she worked with Dr Bekah Simms and David Fennessy.
Paul Scully
Paul Scully is an Irish composer and arts manager. He was the Contemporary Music Centre’s Emerging composer for 2022–2023. Scully’s work is multidisciplinary, utilising both acoustic and electronic instruments, and combines performance art with theatrical elements to produce work that can be humorous, chaotic, and ambitious. Much of his work is site-specific and considers the full gamut of an audiences’ experience. His recent works Will we Give it a Bash? and Everything’s Left That’s Worth Defence – both premiered in 2022 – seek to subvert the assumptions of the audience through playful means. Often Scully’s subversive work attempts to exist on the boundaries of dialogue rather than within and can therefore be ever-evolving depending on the context in which it is performed. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 2016 with a BA (Hons.) in Music. In 2021 he graduated from IADT with a PGDip in Cultural Event Management (with distinction). He is the general manager of the experimental music ensemble Kirkos and runs their venue and artist space, Unit 44, in Stoneybatter, Dublin. www.kirkosensemble.com
John Aulich
John Aulich is a composer and creative technologist from Manchester, England. His music has been performed internationally, including by ELISION Ensemble and International Contemporary Ensemble. John’s music spans a number of broad themes, including atmosphere and the body, viscerality, ambiguity of meaning, sensuality and touch, and innovations in music notation. His work is characterised by evocative, highly-charged and volatile soundworlds stemming from the physicality of performance. John earned his PhD at the University at Buffalo in New York in 2022 under the auspices of Prof. David Felder, and his Master’s Degree in 2016, supervised by Aaron Cassidy and Bryn Harrison. Since his return to the UK, he has taken part in LSO Soundhub, Impuls Festival in Graz and a variety of small collaborations. His solo percussion piece, six doors of the invisible, was shortlisted by Sound and Music for the British section of ISCM World Music Days 2023. Alongside his freelance work, John teaches part-time at the University of Edinburgh.
Monika Dalach Sayers
Monika Dalach Sayers is a Polish composer and multimedia artist based in London. Her music makes broad references to pop culture and current issues including environmental pollution with textile and plastic waste, and societal issues towards women. In her compositional practice, she searches for new hybrid forms of musical expression by confronting acoustic instruments and traditional ensemble scoring against electronics, performative elements, text, and various new media. In 2024 Monika was appointed on to the London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Composers Scheme to develop and write an orchestral piece. Monika has worked with ensembles such as Plus-Minus, EXAUDI, Workers Union and Kompopolex. Her piece CARBON IS THE NEW BLACK was recently performed at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Her other music has been performed at contemporary music festivals including Warsaw Autumn, Sacrum Profanum and Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Milton Court, The Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic and The National Philharmonic in Warsaw. Monika held a Junior Artist Fellowship (2017/18, 2018/19) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama for two years, following her Master’s Degree in Composition with Professor Malcolm Singer. Her music was featured on the New Music Show on BBC Radio 3.
Anne Castex
Anne Castex, born in 1993 in southern France, is a composer of instrumental, electroacoustic and mixed music. Presently a student in composition at the CNSMD Lyon, she began studying composition in 2016 at the conservatory of Toulouse in the acousmatic music class of Bertrand Dubedout. She first got into acousmatic music simply out of curiosity, but it quickly developed into a real passion. Since then, she has also explored mixed and instrumental music, broadening her musical language. In 2022, Anne obtained her Bachelor’s degree in composition to Mixed music in Michele Tadini’s class. For her Master, she studies with Martin Matalon and Daniel D’Adamo in Instrumental Composition class. She is the recipient of a grant from the Société Générale C'est vous l'avenir Fondation for the year 2024/2025.
Vincent Portes
Before joining the Master’s degree program at the CNSMD in Lyon, where he current studies with Martin Matalon, Vincent studied with Bertrand Dubedout and Guy Ferla at the CRR in Toulouse. He has had the opportunity to meet and work with many composers whilst attending masterclasses and academies, including Philippe Hurel, Mauro Lanza, Philippe Leroux, Carola Bauckholt, Yann Robin, Francesco Filidei, Philippe Manoury and Yan Maresz. In 2022, Vincent was awarded 1st Prize at Académie Maurice Ravel for 'La Tarte' (for soprano and ensemble) and 1st Prize at Matan Givol Composition Contest for 'Le Papier Peint Jaune' (for 5 musicians). He has also been laureate of several competitions, including Petites Formes 2022 with 'Diapositive n°2 – Tokyo' (an electroacoustic piece), and the International Workshop for Young Composers 2018 with 'Kaléidoscope' (for 7 musicians). Vincent has worked with many different ensembles, including Meitar Ensemble, Multilatérale Ensemble, Eco Ensemble, Kebyart Ensemble, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Divertimento ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. His works have been commissioned by Philharmonie de Paris, Studio éOle and Académie Maurice Ravel.
