About
Aoife Kavanagh is an Irish composer, sound designer and pianist, active across a variety of music disciplines, including theatre, dance, film, and concert music. Collaboration is at the heart of her practice.
Aoife has worked with some of Ireland's leading theatre and dance companies, including the Abbey Theatre. Landmark Productions, Ballet Ireland, Fishamble, Once-Off Productions, Rough Magic and Roisin Whelan Dance. Aoife has worked on shows that have toured nationally and internationally, to the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia.
Recent theatre credits include Reunion (Landmark Productions & GIAF - Kiln London, Gaiety Theatre Dublin, Galway International Arts Festival); The Saviour (Irish Rep New York, Pavilion Theatre Dublin); Ghosts (Landmark Productions/Abbey Theatre); The Vanishing Elephant (Cahoots NI - New Victory Theatre New York), The Long Christmas Dinner (Abbey Theatre); Tom Moran is a Big Fat Disgusting Filthy Liar (Peacock Theatre, international tour)
Aoife has a background in dance and particularly enjoys composing and designing for movement-based projects. Credits include The Glasshouse (Ballet Ireland) and Double Act (Honey&Lemon - Project Arts Centre). Regular collaborators include Roisin Whelan Dance (Man Down, The Galaxy of Occupations, Iomhá), as well as Aisling Ní Cheallaigh and Jenny Tufts (Nasc, Ar Scath A Chéile, Dúlamán).
Aoife also has a thriving practice as a composer for soloists, chamber ensembles, and choirs. Her string quartet 'Every Cloud Passes Over' was winner of the West Cork Chamber Music Composers Competition 2025, and she was recently awarded the Jerome Hynes Young Composers Award in association with the National Concert Hall.
She has also composed for several short films and screendances which have been screened at festivals in Ireland and abroad, including 'The Corona' which exhibited at VISUAL Carlow for three months. She has assisted major Irish composers for stage and screen including Mel Mercier, Denis Clohessy and Anna Rice.
Aoife also has a strong interest in music education. She currently teaches group piano at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and taught piano, composition and music theory to children and adults of all ages for many years at Waltons New School of Music and in other music schools throughout Ireland. She also facilitates composition workshops in primary schools.
She holds a BA Double Hons in Music and German from Maynooth University and a Masters in Composition from Trinity College Dublin. Her work has previously been funded by the Arts Council, Carlow County Council and Artlinks.
Aoife is a proud member of the Screen Composers Guild of Ireland, the Irish Composers Collective and the Irish Society of Performance Designers.
