(b Dublin, 4 April 1933). Irish composer. He studied in Dublin and with J.N. David in Stuttgart (1957-9) and has taught composition and Irish folk music studies at University College, Dublin, since 1959. His relatively small output absorbs several current European procedures, including since the early 1960s serial techniques, an interest in new timbres and aleatory methods and the incorporation of Irish folk elements, to form an individual, adventurous style capable of expressive intensity, as his Configurations for orchestra (1967) and his String Quartet (1969) show.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.