Crash Ensemble has been played on NTS shows including Westward Ho! w/ Ashley Wales, with Oh Lord, How Vain first played on 31 January 2017.

Crash Ensemble was founded in 1997 by composer Donnacha Dennehy; conductor and pianist Andrew Synott; and clarinetist Michael Seaver. Since its first sold-out concert in Dublin in the autumn of 1997, the group has attracted enthusiastic audiences for its particular blend of music, video and electronics.The group is interdisciplinary in outlook, and considers its sound engineers, technicians and video makers as much a part of the enterprise as the musicians.

Crash has commissioned or premiered a large amount of works by many composers incuding Terry Riley, Peter Adriaansz, Raymond Deane, Donnacha Dennehy, Arnold Dreyblatt, Stephen Gardner, Michael Gordon, John Godfrey, Andrew Hamilton, Jurgen Simpson, Gerhard Stabler, Jennifer Walshe, Ian Wilson and Kevin Volans. It has worked directly with all the above, and with other composers such as Louis Andreissen, Gavin Bryars, Gloria Coates, Roger Doyle, Michael Maierhof and Steve Reich.

Since 2002, Crash has hosted two contemporary music festivals, attracting international composers and performers to Dublin to collaborate with Irish colleagues. In 2006, Crash performed three concerts in the RTÉ Living Music Festival’s first all-day ‘marathon’ event in the presence of featured composer, Steve Reich. Presented in association with the Ensemble, the marathon was a sell-out and the festival, under the artistic direction of Donnacha Dennehy, proved a tremendous success with the Irish public.

As well as performing regularly throughout Ireland, Crash has appeared in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, USA and Canada and has been broadcast on radio in all these countries. The BBC broadcast their recent December 2005 London debut in full.

Crash has made an indelible mark on the Irish music scene and beyond. They believe in a joyous yet absolutely rigorous engagement with the most adventurous music of today and the (extremely) recent past. Crash will feature in recordings by labels such as NMC (London) and Cantaloupe (New York) to be released in the coming year.

Crash Ensemble is supported by the Arts Council.