John William Glover

John William Glover (19 June 1815 – 19 December 1899) was an Irish composer, conductor, organist, violinist, and teacher. Life and music Glover was born in Dublin, where he initially became an orchestral violinist as early as 1830. In 1848, he succeeded Haydn Corri as organist of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, and also became professor of music at the Central Model Schools of the Board of National Education. An experienced choral conductor, he established the short-lived Choral Institute of Dublin in 1851. He presented a series of “National Concerts” in 1853 to commemorate Thomas Moore one year after the poet’s death, and also co-organised and conducted large musical performances on the occasion of the centenaries of Daniel O’Connell (1875) and Thomas Moore (1879). As a composer, Glover was one of a handful of native composers who cultivated (classical) musical life in Dublin in the mid-19th century – and among these the only one of Roman Catholic denomination. A personal friend of the émigrés Michael William Balfe and William Vincent Wallace, he, too, was inclined towards opera, despite the incomparably more difficult circumstances in Ireland in this period. His most ambitious