JOHN KINSELLA WAS Born in Dublin in 1932, He studied viola at the College of Music (now the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama) in Dublin. He had early success with a. number of works written in the style of serial tone poems, accepted for performance by RTÉ ensembles, including A Selected Life (1973), a large-scale composition based on verses written in memory of the recently deceased Seán Ó Riada by his brother Thomas. In 1968 became senior assistant in the music department of RTÉ. BUT after completing his String Quartet No. 3 (1977) he stopped composing for 18 months. He had grown weary of writing music in a style that suppressed melodic content. This awareness came at the time his first wife died of cancer. In 1983, he became head of Music at RTÉ after 20 years. In 1988 stepped down to fully devote his time to composition. Kinsella received the Marten Toonder Award in 1979 and became a founder member of Aosdána in 1981.  He didn’t complete the work he numbered Symphony No 1 until 1984, the year he turned 52. Since then he has composed eleven symphonies, a second violin concerto, a ‘cello concerto and a fifth string quartet, all of which have been publicly performed, and many solo and chamber works. He has been commissioned by, among others, The Irish Chamber Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Dublin International Piano Competition and The Arts Council of Wales. Recent premieres include a fifth string quartet for 2013 West Cork Chamber Music Festival and a piano piece for the 2014 New Ross Piano Festival.  He also composed an orchestral work to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.  His Symphony No.10 was premiered in 2012 by The Irish Chamber Orchestra with conductor Gabor Takacs-Nagy. His 11th Symphony was written, published, and premiered before his death in November, 2021.