Composer
Alex Dowling
Biography
Alex Dowling is a GRAMMY-nominated Irish composer and producer whose work spans from acoustic ensembles to live electronics and opera.
His latest album Breathers is a breathwork meditation album for string quartet described as being “unlike any other work in the string quartet repertoire” (Textura). Written for members of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, it uses the contours of the music to guide listeners through a range of breathwork techniques that each have a different effect on the mind and body.
Previous works include his album Reality Rounds for Auto-Tune choir, and the mini opera Her Name for boy soprano commissioned by Irish National Opera as part of their 20 Shots of Opera project. Dowling created the electronic music for the opera double-bill TRADE / Mary Motorhead by Emma O’Halloran that was showcased at the PROTOTYPE 2023 festival in New York, LA Opera REDCAT, toured multiple venues in Ireland, and had its Australian premiere in Melbourne in 2026. The album of these operas was released on Signum records and, for his work as producer, he received a nomination in the Best Opera Recording category at the 68th GRAMMY awards.
Dowling studied composition as a PhD fellow at Princeton University and was named a MacDowell Fellow and an artist-in-residence at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. He runs the Irish-based record label Little Magic Records.
August 2026