West Cork Chamber Music Festival Reveals 2026 Composition Competition Winners
Daniel Luke Smith, Aidan Taylor, and Amy Tyson win with works to premiere at the Bantry festival.
West Cork Music has announced the winners of the 2026 West Cork Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition: Daniel Luke Smith for A Shape Becoming, Aidan Taylor for String Quartet No. 2 and Amy Tyson for Wheatfield with Crows.
This year’s competition attracted more than twenty-five submissions, reflecting a particularly high standard of emerging compositional talent. The winning works will be workshopped as part of the Young Composers Forum at the 2026 West Cork Chamber Music Festival under the guidance of acclaimed Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy, who served as adjudicator for this year’s competition. Each work will also receive its world premiere at the Festival, performed by a conservatoire quartet as part of the Young Musicians Series.
Dublin composer and pianist Daniel Luke Smith blends years of classical training with jazz, contemporary and neoclassical influences, in music shaped by both concert and screen composition. His recent projects include the critically acclaimed My Father’s Son for piano and cello and a new collection of piano études developed during a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre.
Irish Canadian composer Aidan Taylor, currently based in Oxford, has had his music commissioned, broadcast and performed internationally in more than 20 countries by orchestras, ensembles and institutions. His body of work includes 7 staged ballets, 6 recorded albums, several symphonies and a large collection of chamber repertoire. He currently serves as the Rehearsal Director of Ancient Music at Oxford.
Manchester-based Irish composer Amy Tyson, originally from Dublin and raised in Belfast, draws inspiration from Irish folk traditions, literature and visual art, creating richly textured works influenced by composers including Rebecca Saunders and Salvatore Sciarrino.
The 2026 West Cork Chamber Music Festival takes place in Bantry from 26 June to 5 July and will feature ten days of performances by leading international artists and ensembles including the Calidore Quartet, Attacca Quartet and NOVO Quartet, alongside soloists Anna Fedorova, Diana Tishchenko and Andreas Brantelid. The Festival continues its celebrated mix of chamber music masterworks, contemporary music, premieres, masterclasses, young musician performances and free Fringe events across West Cork.
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