Tony Doyle
Department of Music
Lecturer
Dr. Tony Doyle is a composer and performer whose work spans electroacoustic and spatial audio composition, as well as classical and jazz performance. He holds an MPhil in Music and Media Technology from Trinity College Dublin and a PhD from the University of Limerick, where he developed the Spectral Precedence Spatialization technique. While his primary instrument is the piano, his practice focuses heavily on the use of electronics, including a range of electronic instruments in his compositions.
Tony was a founding member of the Women in Sound Women on Sound (WISWOS) organization, which was created to foster inclusive learning spaces for women in the field of sound. His contributions include developing an online learning platform and co-curating a series of symposia, performances, and exhibitions dedicated to sound and new music. This work involved international collaborations with sound scholars like Dr. Diana Chester and Prof. Linda O'Keeffe.
As a performer, Tony has toured the UK and Ireland, and has presented his original electroacoustic compositions internationally. Notably, he performed in Japan with Ensemble Moderne in Tokyo, and in Germany at Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin, in collaboration with visual artist Ashley James Brown. In 2019, they were commissioned to create a performance piece for the Full of Noise Festival. His ongoing collaboration with sound artist Linda O'Keeffe has led to several commissions, including their 2021 work for Oxford University’s Myriad Materialities Festival, titled 'As Gaeilge Time and Space'. Recently, they presented a new collaborative piece, 'Coded Nature' at the Staller Centre.
Tony is also the co-founder of the artist collective Non Random, which has received multiple grants to develop interactive audio-visual artworks that explore the intersection of science, technology, and the arts. Their 2022 project GAIA has been featured at numerous UK festivals and was shortlisted for the S+T+ARTS project in Italy. Non Random recently became an affiliate of the SETI Institute in California, where Tony, alongside the collective, embarked on a two-year artist residency in 2024. This collaboration with SETI focuses on the intersection of art, music, and science, addressing themes such as climate change, deep time, interplanetary human life, and the evolution of technology and biology.
Tony’s artistic focus blends sound, coding, and language, using evolution and interactivity as key themes. He explores how spatialization transforms the listener's experience, creating immersive audio-visual interactions that push the boundaries of traditional composition and performance.
In addition to his creative work, Tony has contributed significantly to the development of new techniques in the field of spatial audio, most notably with his 'Spectral Precedence Spatialization' methodology, developed during his PhD at the University of Limerick. His expertise in this field has led to several key publications and speaking engagements at international conferences, including his work with ambisonics and height perception in 3D virtual auditory displays. His innovative approach to sound design and spatial audio has garnered attention in both the arts and scientific communities.
Tony is currently teaching courses in sound design, music and timbre, and audio engineering, guiding students through both the technical and creative dimensions of sound. He has also developed a new course, 'Creative Coding - Multimedia Interactions', which will be introduced next year. This course will focus on combining coding with sound and visual media, encouraging students to explore interdisciplinary and innovative approaches in their work.
In addition to his teaching and research, Tony has been a Senior Research Associate at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, where he played a key role in developing a £1.3 million AHRC-funded project on the ethics of gene editing, through a digital multi-arts approach. His research interests extend beyond the purely technical aspects of sound, incorporating broader questions of ethics, technology, and the future of sound art in interdisciplinary contexts.
Tony is keen to supervise students in composition, with a focus on Spatial Audio, Mixed Media, Electroacoustics, Audiovisual Arts, Jazz, Creative Coding Arts, Music Technology, Psychoacoustics, and Auditory Scene Analysis.