Judith Ring is a composer and musician whose key areas of interest are electro-acoustic composition, improvisation and collaboration. Her music focuses on the production and manipulation of complex sound and the development of rich textures derived from unconventional instrumental techniques.
Ring completed a PhD by composition in 2009 at the University of York under the supervision of Ambrose Field and Roger Marsh with the aid of the Elizabeth Maconchy Fellowship from the Arts Council of Ireland. She also holds a first class honours Masters in Music and Media Technologies from Trinity College Dublin. At TCD she studied electroacoustic composition under Donnacha Dennehy and Roger Doyle.
She is the co-founder of The-Link-Project organization, alongside Angie Atmadjaja, Emily Kalies and Enrico Bertelli, through which the music festival “Sensorium” will be presented in March 2011 at Project, Cube, with funding from a music project award from the Arts Council of Ireland. This festival aims to promote music in innovative arrangements including contemporary music, improvisation, electronic music, electro-acoustic music, music and video, music and dance and performance art along with other co-creative media.
Currently she is collaborating with the singer-songwriter and improviser Laura Hyland and singer Laura Murphy on a vocal project centered around improvised song. She has also been commissioned to compose a piece for violist Garth Knox and Concorde, and will premiere a piece for voice (Michelle O’Rourke) and cello (Kate Ellis) at Sensorium 2011.
As a sound designer/composer she worked on the RAW theatre company production of OFF PLAN by Simon Doyle in association with the Project Arts Centre, Dublin in January 2010.
In July 2009 she was the guest composer at the Irish composition summer school working alongside composers Nicola LeFanu, Martin O'Leary and John Mclachlan.
Accumulation won first prize for the International Luigi Russolo electronic music composition competition 2000, in Varese, Italy and it has been performed in Dublin and Germany including EXPO 2000 in Hannover. Ring has written pieces for Concorde ensemble, the Crash Ensemble, Percusemble (Berlin), Trio Scordatura (Holland), University of York chamber orchestra, and Bradyworks (Canada). She has written solo + tape pieces for Natasha Lohan (voice), Paul Roe (bass clarinet), Laura Moody (Cello), Damien Harron (percussion), Elisabeth Smalt (adapted viola), Malachy Robinson (double bass), Andre Leroux (tenor sax) and an acoustic piece for Rolf Hind (piano).
In the past Ring's works were used in Dance theatre of Irelands performances, Evidence and Prism. In 2005 and 2006 she collaborated with two choreographers, Anna Melander and Vince Virr from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD, England) on 4 dance pieces. She has also written the music to two short films, one of which, "Time and again" directed by Barry Dowling, was aired on Network 2's program Debut. In August 2002 she co-composed the music alongside Jürgen Simpson for video artist Clare Langans, piece Glass hour which has been exhibited in the Tate Liverpool, RHA Dublin and MoMa New York among others. Her compositions have been widely performed in Europe and the U.S.A.