Ireland on Music Theory Print

Ailbhe McDonagh

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Ailbhe McDonagh (born 29 November 1982) is an Irish concert cellist and composer. She performs internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and recording artist with several studio albums to her name. McDonagh has composed works for orchestra, chamber music ensembles and pedagocial purposes. Collections of her compositions have been published by Boosey & Hawkes and are featured regularly in the ABRSM, Royal Irish Academy of Music and other exam syllabi. McDonagh is a professor of cello at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland. Career Born in Dublin, Ailbhe McDonagh is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, USA, where she studied under Steven Doane, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), Dublin, Ireland. She currently teaches cello performance at the RIAM. As a chamber musician, McDonagh performs with pianist John O’Conor and also in a duo, The McDonagh Sisters, with her sister and pianist Orla McDonagh. She is a member of the chamber music group Ficino Ensemble and the crossover group Trio Elatha where she plays traditional Irish music on the cello. McDonagh joined the cello faculty of the RIAM in 2010 and has been invited to give mast

Alicia Adélaide Needham

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Alicia Adélaide Needham (née Montgomery; 31 October 1863 – 24 December 1945) was an Irish composer of songs and ballads. A committed suffragette, she was the first woman to conduct at the Royal Albert Hall, London, and the first female president of the National Eisteddfod of Wales (in 1906). Life Needham was born in Oldcastle, Co. Meath, daughter of John Wilson Montgomery (1834-1911), master of the Bailieborough Workhouse and a clerk to the poor law board of guardians; he was also an antiquarian, contributing to local newspapers on the subject, and produced some books of poetry, becoming known as the “Bard of Bailieborough”. The family subsequently lived at Downpatrick in County Down. She went to boarding school in Derry for four years and spent the following year in Castletown, Isle of Man. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, first for one year only (most likely the academic year 1880–1): piano with the Irish pianist and composer Arthur O’Leary, harmony and counterpoint with Francis William Davenport and occasionally with George Alexander Macfarren and Ebenezer Prout. It is not clear what she did in the intervening three years before she resumed her studies in 188

Aloys Fleischmann

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Aloys Fleischmann (13 April 1910 – 21 July 1992) was an Irish composer, musicologist, professor and conductor. Early life and education Fleischmann was born in Munich to Ireland-based German parents. Both were musicians, both graduates of the Royal Academy of Music in Munich. His father, Aloys Fleischmann senior of Dachau, organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St Anne, Cork and his mother, Tilly Fleischmann née Swertz (1882–1967), born in Cork to German parents, pianist and piano teacher. Fleischmann was educated in Scoil Íte, the school founded by Terence MacSwiney’s sisters in 1916, in Christian Brothers College, Cork, and in St Finbarr’s College, Farranferris. He graduated from University College Cork with a BA in 1930, was awarded the BMus in 1931, an MA in 1932, and a doctorate in music (DMus) from the National University of Ireland in 1963. In 1932, he went on to study composition, conducting and musicology at the Academy of Music and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München under Joseph Haas. Career Fleischmann returned to University College Cork in 1934; he held the position of professor of music there until 1980. When Fleischmann took up his post in 1

Annie Patterson

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Annie Wilson Patterson (27 October 1868 – 16 January 1934) was an Irish organist, music educator, writer, composer, and arranger. Life Annie Patterson was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Ireland, and was related through her mother’s family to Lord Macaulay. She made her debut performance in Dublin at age fifteen, studied at Alexandra College and the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin (with Robert Prescott Stewart), and received her doctorate in 1889, becoming the first Irish or British woman to hold a Doctorate of Music. After she completed her studies, she became an examiner for the Royal University of Ireland and worked as an organist and conductor of the Dublin Choral Union and the Hampstead Harmonic Society. In 1897 she co-founded the Feis Ceoil festival in Dublin. The Dr. Annie Patterson Medal is awarded in her honor at the festival. In 1909 Patterson took a job as organist at St. Anne’s in Shandon, County Cork. Patterson composed sacred and secular cantatas, orchestral works and songs based on Irish themes. She also wrote poetry, essays, short stories as well as professional articles and books on music. She published articles in The Girl’s Own Paper in England and a series

Arthur Duff (composer)

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Arthur Knox Duff (13 March 1899 – 23 September 1956) was an Irish composer and conductor, best known for his short orchestral pieces such as the Handel-inspired Echoes of Georgian Dublin. His career also encompassed senior positions in the Irish Army School of Music and in the music department of Radio Éireann. Early years and education Duff was born in Dublin to John William Duff, a native of King’s County (now County Offaly), and his wife Annie Kathleen Hickey. Duff was a chorister in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin and studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music under Charles Herbert Kitson. He completed his education at Trinity College Dublin where he obtained his primary degree in arts and music. In 1942, he was awarded a doctorate in music following an examination. Duff was initially drawn to the ministry of the Church of Ireland but abandoned his religious studies before the final examination. Career Duff had a varied career in music as a solo performer, conductor, arranger, producer, and composer. He later became an author and playwright, although he remained most famous for his music. He first came to public prominence in his early twenties for his organ recitals in St. Ma

Arthur O'Leary (composer)

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Arthur O’Leary (15 March 1834 – 11 March 1919) was an Irish composer, pianist and teacher. Biography O’Leary was born in Tralee, County Kerry, both his father (also named Arthur) and uncle Daniel having been talented musicians, too. Arthur Senior was said to be first cousin to Arthur Sullivan’s grandfather in an obituary for O’Leary written by W. H. Grattan Flood. When young Arthur’s talents were discovered at the age of ten, a visiting barrister, Wyndham Goold became his patron: in May 1844 he sent him to school in Dublin and secured private piano tuition. With financial backing from others, including John Stanford (father of Charles Villiers Stanford), and with letters of introduction from William Sterndale Bennett, O’Leary was able to study at the conservatory in Leipzig, where he arrived in 1847 to study piano (with Ignaz Moscheles), organ, violin, and harmony (with Julius Rietz). During this time he was invited several times to musical dinners where he met, besides Moscheles, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Joseph Joachim. He also attended Mendelssohn’s funeral in 1847. Between February 1852 and December 1854 O’Leary studied the piano with Cipriani Potter and Sterndale Bennett

Arthur Warren Darley

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Arthur Warren Darley (19 June 1873 – 19 December 1929) was an Irish violinist, folksong collector, music teacher, and adjudicator as well as a traditional music archivist. As a violinist (or “fiddler”) he was equally at home in classical music as in the traditional music of Ireland. Life Arthur Warren Darley was born in Dún Laoghaire and first lived on Silchester Road, Glasthule. He was a grandnephew of poet George Darley. His father Henry Warren Darley had converted to Catholicism. His family was musical both in traditional and classical. His grandfather played the uilleann pipes and fiddle, and his father played fiddle and viola. Darley began learning the violin at age 8 and studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), becoming a teacher there while still studying, initially assisting his teacher Adolf Wilhelmj (son of August Wilhelmj). He was appointed senior professor at the RIAM, 1900–1903. Later he was a fellow in the College of Violinists, London, a professor at the Leinster School of Music & Drama, in August 1928 became the first director of the Municipal School of Music, Dublin. He was the founder and leader of the Dublin String Quartet, which also included Terry O'

Bettina Walker

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Bettina or Bessie Walker (1837 – 4 February 1893) was an Irish pianist and composer. She wrote a memoir of her musical education, published in 1890. Biography Walker was born in Dublin, the daughter of physician William Augustus Walker, who died in 1838. Her mother encouraged her study of music, but opposed Walker’s hopes of a career as a pianist. Walker studied in the 1870s, first with William Sterndale Bennett in London and Carl Tausig in Berlin and Giovanni Sgambati in Rome. In 1883 she came to Weimar and continued her studies with Franz Liszt. She also studied under Ludwig Deppe, Xaver Scharwenka and Adolf Henselt. She advertised herself as an “honorary associate of the St. Cecilian Academy of Rome.” After Henselt’s death in 1889 she settled in Fulham, London, where she taught her piano methodology, but died four years later, in 1893, in her sixties. memoirs, My Musical Experiences (1890), in which she details her numerous encounters with important musicians. “The book is pleasantly written with perfect freshness and innocence and freedom from affectation,” commented one reviewer. Critics compared Walker’s book to Amy Fay’s Music Study in Germany (1880), an American woman’s mem

Brendan Graham

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Brendan Graham (born 12 February 1945) is an Irish songwriter and novelist. Among songs he has written are “Rock ’n’ Roll Kids” (1994) and “The Voice” (1996), both of which won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland in their respective years, and “You Raise Me Up” (2002), which was an international hit recorded by various artists, including Josh Groban. Early life Graham was born in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland. Songwriting Brendan Graham is one of Ireland’s most famous lyricists and songwriters. In an article about the song tradition of Ireland, Con Houlihan wrote, “Some of the best poetry being produced in this country today is in the form of song – Christy Moore and Brendan Graham and Jimmy McCarthy are touched by genius.” In a feature article, the Irish Times described Graham as a ‘Musical Midas in the Mayo Silence.’ Graham wrote the lyrics for the 2002 song, “You Raise Me Up”. Rolf Løvland, who composed the music, was inspired by The Whitest Flower, Graham’s first novel. Rolf asked the songwriter/novelist to write lyrics to his melody called Silent Story at the time. “You Raise Me Up” was a huge international hit for Irish boyband Westlife. It has been covered by differe

Brian Boydell

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Brian Patrick Boydell (17 March 1917 – 8 November 2000) was an Irish composer whose works include orchestral pieces, chamber music, and songs. He was Professor of Music at Trinity College Dublin for 20 years, founder of the Dowland Consort, conductor of the Dublin Orchestral Players, and a broadcaster and writer on musical matters. He was also a musicologist specialising in 18th-century Irish musical history. Early life and education Boydell was born in Howth, County Dublin, into an Anglo-Irish family. His father James ran the family maltings business while his mother, Eileen Collins, was one of the first women graduates of Trinity College. Following their son’s birth, the Boydells moved from Howth and lived in a succession of rented houses before settling in Shankill, County Dublin. The young Boydell began his formal education at Monkstown Park in Dublin and was subsequently sent to the Dragon School at Oxford. From there he went to Rugby, where he came under the influence of Kenneth Stubbs, the music master. Although Boydell later spoke of his resentment at the anti-Irish attitude he experienced at Rugby, he said “the education there was very good, in science and music.” Followin

Carmel Gunning

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Carmel Gunning is an Irish composer and musician, from Sligo, Ireland. Gunning is one of Ireland’s most accomplished tin whistle players who is also known for her singing and flute playing and also plays guitar and button accordion. Gunning’s rich stylised form of whistle playing and tradition stems from her homeland of Geevagh in South County Sligo. This background and tradition aided Gunning’s introduction to traditional Irish music which took place at an early age. Musical beginnings Gunning was introduced to traditional Irish music as a child when her father, Tom Nangle, would teach her old tunes by lilting or whistling them to her. In 1969 she sang in her first band, “Carmel and the Chrystals”, and played at local dances in Keadue, Geevagh, Boyle and surrounding areas. Playing in the band with Gunning was her brother, Tom Nangle Jnr., Tony Mullaney, Kevin Conlon and his brother. Gunning won the All-Ireland tin whistle slow airs competition at the Fleadh Cheoil in 1976 and senior Scór title for “Music Instrument” section, which incorporates all musical instruments used in traditional Irish music including the fiddle, uilleann pipes, accordion and harp as well as the tin whistle

Charles Thomas Carter

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Charles Thomas Carter (c. 1735 – 12 October 1804) was an Irish composer and organist with mixed success as an opera composer in London, but with some songs that remained popular beyond his lifetime. Life There is considerable confusion about the identity and potential family connections of various musicians called Carter in Dublin and London, three of whom abbreviated their name as “T. Carter”. The first was Timothy Carter (c. 1715–1772), a Dublin musician who became the father of the present (Charles) Thomas Carter and of Sampson Carter (c.1749–1815). Another Irish-born composer named Thomas Carter (1769–1800) was considerably younger, but died earlier – the London-published music of these two Thomas Carters during the 1790s is difficult to distinguish. (Charles) Thomas often, but not always, abbreviated his name as “C.T. Carter”. According to John O’Keeffe, Thomas was a choirboy in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, but there is no other evidence for this. He was organist at St Werburgh’s Church, Dublin, from 10 December 1751 to 7 November 1754, when the organ was destroyed by fire. There were benefit concerts on his behalf in Dublin in 1754 and 1756. He was then appointed organist

Charles Villiers Stanford

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Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the University of Cambridge before studying music in Leipzig and Berlin. He was instrumental in raising the status of the Cambridge University Musical Society, attracting international stars to perform with it. While still an undergraduate, Stanford was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1882, aged 29, he was one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his life. From 1887 he was also Professor of Music at Cambridge. As a teacher, Stanford was sceptical about modernism, and based his instruction chiefly on classical principles as exemplified in the music of Brahms. Among his pupils were rising composers whose fame went on to surpass his own, such as Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. As a conductor, Stanford held posts with the Bach Choir and the Leeds Triennial Music Festival. Stanford composed a substantial number of concert works, including seven symphonies, but his be

Ciarán Farrell

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Ciarán Farrell (born 1969, Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish composer who has been active in his field since graduating from Trinity College Dublin in 1997. He has composed works for orchestra, ensemble, choir, and solo instruments, as well as for TV and film productions. Early life and education Farrell was raised in a music-loving household and growing up he studied piano and clarinet at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. In his teens, he took up the guitar and later went on to study the classical guitar at the Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music and Drama. He received his degree in music from Trinity College Dublin, and he also took classes with Ennio Morricone at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Composition career Farrell has received commissions from the BBC, RTÉ Performing Groups, RTÉ lyric fm (RTÉ Concert Orchestra with actor Barry McGovern), saxophonist Gerard McChrystal, the Smith Quartet, Katie McMahon, Concorde Contemporary Music Ensemble, and John Feeley, amongst others. He has also worked with Irish dance theatre companies, Cois Ceim and Irish Modern Dance Theatre. Farrell has also worked on numerous TV and film productions including the inte

Conor Mitchell

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Conor Mitchell is a Northern Irish composer, librettist and theatre-maker. His play, The Dummy Tree, was commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for their 2009 New Connections series. Early life and education Conor Mitchell grew up in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, where he attended school. His family line includes a long history of Irish folk musicians from County Armagh. He was later educated at Methodist College, Belfast and the University of York, where he studied music with the composers David Blake and Nicola LeFanu Personal life Mitchell identifies as a member of the queer community and has written several works that highlight the rights of gay people. He has publicly shared his struggle with alcoholism, which nearly claimed his life. He entered recovery in 2014 and has since become an advocate for others battling addiction . Career Mitchell’s major influences are Benjamin Britten, Stephen Sondheim, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Complete Works Music theatre * Have a Nice Life * Goblin Market based on Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market * Matilde based on Guy de Maupassant’s story, “La Parure” (The Necklace). * Merry Christmas Betty Ford * The Dummy

David Downes (Irish composer)

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David Downes is a composer, pianist, producer, and music director who is known for both contemporary composition as well as work in the commercial field, particularly with Riverdance and as founder of Celtic Woman. Career David Downes was born in Dublin, Ireland. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin where he studied Music and Composition. He has performed at venues around the world, including Boston Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall and Wembley Arena, appearing with soloists James Galway and Alan Stivell, the group Boyzone, and the Washington Symphony, Moravian Philharmonic, Hollywood Studio Symphony and National Symphony orchestras. He has made recordings with Moya Brennan, Clannad, Michael Crawford, Michael W. Smith and Bill Whelan. He has acted as orchestrator for Riverdance on Broadway and Secret Garden most notably. He joined Riverdance where he was Music Director on Broadway, as well as for the American and European touring companies. Later he and Sharon Browne formed ‘Celtic Woman’, which has toured across the world with platinum recordings in the US, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and major following in Asia, Europe and South America. He acted as musical director for Irish

David Flynn (composer)

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David Flynn (also known as Dave Flynn, born 6 January 1977) is an Irish composer, musician, and the founder and artistic director of the Irish Memory Orchestra. Many of his works music merge the influence of traditional Irish music with contemporary classical music and jazz. He is also a multi-instrumentalist who works across many genres including classical, jazz, rock and traditional Irish music, with guitar being his main instrument. Early experiences Flynn was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. His early musical experiences included brief periods studying piano and tin whistle, but it was not until his early teens that Flynn really took to music, teaching himself how to play rock guitar. He developed an interest in classical guitar in his mid-teens and taught himself how to read music notation, he also learnt classical guitar by ear from recordings. He composed his first piece for classical guitar aged 16. Upon leaving school in 1995 he studied rock music at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, Dublin. Around this time Flynn started composing songs and performed on the Dublin singer-songwriter scene, including at Dave Murphy’s “famous Tuesday night gigs” that helped then u

Donnacha Dennehy

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Donnacha Dennehy (born 17 August 1970) is an Irish composer and leader of the Crash Ensemble specializing in contemporary classical music. According to musicologist Bob Gilmore, Dennehy’s “high profile of his compositions internationally, together with his work as artistic director of Dublin’s Crash Ensemble, has distinguished him as one of the best-known voices of his generation of Irish composers”. Career and works Dennehy was born in Dublin, where he read music at Trinity College where he studied composition with Hormoz Farhat. His post-doctoral musical period included a stint at IRCAM, with Gérard Grisey, and studies in the Netherlands with Louis Andriessen. In 1997, Dennehy returned to Dublin and subsequently co-founded the Crash Ensemble, which focuses on the performance and recording of contemporary music. His works for the Crash Ensemble include Junk Box Fraud, Derailed, and For Herbert Brun. He later returned to Trinity College Dublin as a lecturer in music. His 2005 work for chorus and orchestra, Hive, displays his developing interest in microtones and harmonies based on harmonic spectra. His composition Grá Agus Bás, which was premiered in February 2007, incorporated mus

Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair

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Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair (30 September 1900 – 27 December 1982) was an Irish composer, and a major representative of the conservative side in Irish art music. Life Ó Gallchobhair (anglicised “O’Gallagher”) was born in Dundalk, County Louth, and studied music in Dublin at the Leinster School of Music and the Royal Irish Academy of Music (1927–1935). During 1948–1949 Ó Gallchobhair briefly conducted the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra (today the RTÉ Concert Orchestra). In 1962, he succeeded Seán Ó Riada as conductor of the Abbey Theatre ensemble until it was dissolved after a few years. During this time, he is said to have lived on Pembroke Road. Ó Gallchobhair was a composition teacher for students including John Kinsella. In old age he lived with his wife for parts of the year in Spain and Italy. He died in Alicante (Spain). Music Ó Gallchobhair was a prolific composer and arranger of Irish traditional music for a wide range of instrumentations. He played in a number of orchestras and chamber ensembles for which he frequently wrote or arranged music. Many of these were very popular during his lifetime and were frequently performed or broadcast. Between 1935 and 1942 he wrote eleven “Dan

Eímear Noone

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Eímear Noone (born in Kilconnell, County Galway) is an Irish conductor and composer, best known for her work on video game music. She has conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Bretagne, the Sydney Symphony, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Noone was the first woman to conduct at the Oscars on 9 February 2020, leading the orchestra in excerpts from the five nominated film scores. Noone was also the first woman to conduct at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland. Early life Originally from Kilconnell, Noone is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin who has taught conducting for UCLA Extension, Columbia College Chicago, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and the LA Conducting Salon at the LA Ballet School. Noone co-founded the Dublin City Concert Orchestra X3 Work Noone’s composing and conducting work includes 26 film and video game titles, including Blizzard Entertainment titles Overwatch (2016), Hearthstone (2014), Diablo III (2012), Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010), and World of Warcraft (2004) and its expansions., as well as The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Special Orchestra CD included with The Legend of

Eoin O'Keeffe

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Eoin O’Keeffe is an Irish composer and arranger. Biography O’Keeffe grew up in Clonmel, Ireland. As a member of his local youth band, he played clarinet and later trumpet, before spending some time as conductor and arranger. He studied for a BA Music at Waterford Institute of Technology between 1997 and 2001, where he graduated with a First Class Honours Degree, majoring in composition having studied with Eric Sweeney, as well as composers such as Louis Andriessen. During his time in Waterford, he was awarded with the Good Shepherd Arts Award for his composition. He also conducted the college chamber choir between 2000 and 2001, giving the opportunity to develop his choral writing. He then graduated from University College Cork with a Higher Diploma in Education in 2002 and spent several years working in the education sector, initially in Ireland before moving to London, England. While teaching in London, he continued his studies in composition with composers such as Anna Meredith, Stephen Montague, and Howard Skempton. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London between 2005 and 2007, studying with Richard Baker and graduating with an MA Composition. He lived in

Eric Sweeney (composer)

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Eric Sweeney (15 July 1948 – 21 July 2020) was an Irish composer. He was a member of Aosdána, an elite association of Irish artists. Early life Eric Sweeney was born in Dublin in 1948. He studied in Ireland, England, Belgium and Italy, including at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia. Career Sweeney composed in a minimalist style influenced by Béla Bartók, Olivier Messiaen, Andrzej Panufnik, John Adams and Steve Reich. Over his career, he composed two symphonies, five concertos, three operas and choral works, including the cantata Deirdre. He was influenced by traditional Irish music and airs. Personal life Sweeney married Sally Johnston in 1972; they had three children. They lived in Waterford from 1981 until his death in 2020. References External links * *

Fergus Johnston

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Fergus Johnston (born 21 May 1959) is an Irish composer and member of Aosdána. Life and career Johnston was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of the physicist and political activist Roy H. W. Johnston, and studied for both a degree in music and a master’s degree in Music and Media Technology at Trinity College Dublin (MusB 1982). He also has a PhD in composition from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Initially, he had also studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin (flute with Doris Keogh, clarinet with Tim Hanafin, and composition with James Wilson). In 1985, he was invited by the European Community Youth Orchestra to write an orchestral piece under the guidance of György Ligeti. From 1989 to 1991, he was Chairman of the Association of Irish Composers. He completed his education with the English composer Robert Hanson. Johnston’s output includes works for both orchestra and smaller ensembles, some works of which include electronics, and two operas. His music has been performed at many venues and festivals including the 1985 Asolo Musica Festival in Italy, the 1996 International Society for Contemporary Music Festival, the 2001 Sonorities Festival of Contemporar

Frank Corcoran

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Frank Corcoran ( ; born 1 May 1944) is an Irish composer. His output includes chamber, symphonic, choral and electro-acoustic music, through which he often explores Irish mythology and history. Life “I came late to art music; childhood soundscapes live on. The best work with imagination/intellect must be exorcistic-laudatory-excavatory. I am a passionate believer in “Irish” dream-landscape, two languages, polyphony of history, not ideology or programme. No Irish composer has yet dealt adequately with our past. The way forward – newest forms and technique (for me especially macro-counterpoint) – is the way back to deepest human experience.” Born in Borrisokane, County Tipperary, Corcoran studied at Dublin, Maynooth (1961–4), Rome (1967–9) and Berlin (1969–71), where he was a pupil of Boris Blacher. He was a music inspector for the Irish government Department of Education from 1971 to 1979, after which he took up a composer fellowship from the Berlin Künstlerprogramm (1980–1). He has taught in Berlin (1981), Stuttgart (1982) and Hamburg, where he has been professor of composition and theory in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst (1983–2008). He was a visiting p

Frank McNamara (musician)

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Francis Anthony McNamara is an Irish arranger, conductor, composer, and pianist. Early life McNamara’s career began at the age of 11, when he first appeared on Irish national television. Peter Katin also instructed McNamara in piano in London and Canada. Music Irish audiences are well familiar with McNamara’s work as music director of RTÉ’s The Late Late Show for 20 years. In 1994 and 1995 he signed up with the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RÚV) and rearranged Iceland’s Eurovision Song Contest entries. He conducted the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra on the final night for the live performances of these entries during the Eurovision Song Contest which was hosted in Ireland in both these years. He was also the musical director of the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest, held in Dublin. In 1998, he helped found The Irish Tenors, which group has been highly successful. He was their music director in five of their albums and three PBS specials and toured with them throughout the United States, New Zealand and Australia. Their album Ellis Island rose to number one on Billboards World Music listing. McNamara is the composer of a four-part movement classical work entitled Beatlesymphony, which

Frederick May (composer)

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Frederick May (9 June 1911 – 8 September 1985) was an Irish composer and arranger. His musical career was seriously hindered by a lifelong hearing problem and he produced relatively few compositions. Early years Frederick May was born into a Dublin Protestant family who lived in the suburb of Donnybrook. His father, also named Frederick, was employed at the Guinness Brewery. May pursued his musical studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he was taught composition by John Larchet. In 1930, McCullough Pigott and Co. published his Irish Love Song. The same year he was awarded the Esposito Cup at the Feis Ceoil and as a result of this, he was nominated as the first recipient of a new scholarship prize worth £100 to be spent on the further study of piano. In July he took his preliminary examination for the BMus at Trinity College Dublin before departing Dublin to utilise his scholarship in London. In September he enrolled at the Royal College of Music where his teachers included Charles Kitson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, R. O. Morris and Gordon Jacob. He took his final TCD examination in December 1931 submitting a string quartet and on 10 December his degree was conferred. Durin

Gareth Williams (composer)

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Gareth Patrick Williams (born 1977) is an Irish composer based at Edinburgh College of Art. He was the first composer in residence for Scottish Opera from 2012 to 2015. His work spans from opera and music theatre to chamber music. Career Originally from Armagh, Williams moved to Glasgow after studying music at Queen’s University, Belfast. In 2008 he was awarded his doctorate from the University of St Andrews. He taught composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland until 2012, and since then he has worked as a freelance composer. His work has been featured in the Edinburgh Festival, St Magnus Festival, Tête à Tête (opera company), Opera to Go, and the York Late Music Festival. His music has been broadcast on BBC Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio Ulster, RTÉ Television, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, and CBC Radio 2 in Canada. In 2009, he was on residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, where he wrote two large music theatre pieces -A Short Treatise on Love and Miracle for the Sound Festival in Aberdeen, and Gethsemane for the 2010 Plug Festival. In August 2009 and 2010, he took part in the LibLab at Tapestry New Opera Works in Toronto, to create short operas in coll

Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington

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Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington (19 July 1735 – 22 May 1781) was an Anglo-Irish politician and composer and the father of a distinguished military commander and several politicians of Great Britain and Ireland. Early life Wesley was born at the family estate of Dangan Castle, near Summerhill, a village near Trim in County Meath, Ireland. He was a son of Richard Wesley, 1st Baron Mornington (son of Henry Colley, MP), and Elizabeth Sale (a daughter of John Sale, Registrar of the Diocese of Dublin). He was educated at Trinity College Dublin, and was elected its first Professor of Music in 1764. From early childhood he showed extraordinary talent on the violin, and soon began composing his own works. It was the future Duke of Wellington who, alone of his children, inherited something of his musical talent. Political career Wesley represented Trim in the Irish House of Commons from 1757 until 1758, when he succeeded his father as 2nd Baron Mornington. In 1759 he was appointed Custos Rotulorum of Meath and in 1760, in recognition of his musical and philanthropic achievements, he was created Viscount Wellesley, of Dangan Castle in the County of Meath, and Earl of Mornington. He was

Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer

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Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer (, 8 October 1882 – 29 November 1957) was an Irish composer, mainly of operas and vocal music, among them the first musical settings of poems by James Joyce. Biography Palmer was born of Protestant Irish parents in Staines, Middlesex (England). He grew up in South Woodford, near London, where his father, Abram Smythe Palmer, was vicar at Holy Trinity Church. He studied at Oxford where, in 1901, he was the youngest Bachelor of Music in college history. Between 1904 and 1907 he studied composition with Charles V. Stanford at the Royal College of Music, London. He moved to Ireland in 1910 where he was initially active as a church organist in Dublin suburbs. From his early twenties he suffered from multiple sclerosis, which made a professional independence increasingly difficult. In the last decades of his life, Palmer used a wheelchair and depended upon the care of his two sisters, who were running Hillcourt, a private girls’ boarding school in Glenageary, near their home in Sandycove (south Dublin). Palmer died in Dublin. Music Palmer’s music includes at least three operas, a number of choral pieces and many songs. His strong interest in opera came during a p

George William Torrance

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George William Torrance (25 July 1835 – 20 August 1907) was an Irish composer, mainly of church music, who was resident in Australia for many years. Early life Torrance was born in Rathmines, Dublin, and became a choirboy at Christ Church Cathedral (1847–1851). Before reaching the age of 20, he had already worked as a parish organist in the Dublin area and composed his first oratorio Abraham (1855). He continued his musical education in Leipzig, Germany (1856–1857), before beginning his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1864, M.A. in 1867, and later (by examination only) MusB and MusD (1879). Before his decision to become a clergyman, he tried his hand at a number of secular compositions including the opera William of Normandy (1858) and a number of songs. He was ordained by the Bishop of Lichfield in 1865 for the curacy of St Mary’s Church, Shrewsbury, and remained there till 1867, when he became curate of St. Ann’s, Dublin. Australia, 1869–1898 Torrance went to Victoria (Australia) in December 1869, and in the following February accepted the curacy of Christ Church, South Yarra, being from 1871 to 1876 in charge of St. John’s, Melbourne. Selected comp

Gerald Barry (composer)

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Gerald Barry (born 28 April 1952) is an Irish composer. Life Gerald Barry was born in Clarehill, Clarecastle, County Clare, in the Republic of Ireland. He was educated at St. Flannan’s College, Ennis, County Clare. He went on to study music at University College Dublin, in Amsterdam with Peter Schat, in Cologne with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel, and in Vienna with Friedrich Cerha. Barry taught at University College Cork from 1982 to 1986. Growing up in rural Clare, he had little exposure to music except through the radio: “The thing that was the lightning flash for me, in terms of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, would have been an aria from a Handel opera, from Xerxes maybe, that I heard on the radio. I heard this woman singing this, and bang – my head went. And that was how I discovered music.” “Barry’s is a world of sharp edges, of precisely defined yet utterly unpredictable musical objects. His music sounds like no one else’s in its diamond-like hardness, its humour, and sometimes, its violence.” He often conceives of material independently of its instrumental medium, recycling ideas from piece to piece, as in the reworking of Triorchic Blues from a violin to a p

Gerard Victory

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Thomas Joseph Gerard Victory (24 December 1921 – 14 March 1995) was a prolific Irish composer. He wrote over two hundred works across many genres and styles, including tonal, serial, aleatoric and electroacoustic music. Biography Victory was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1921 the son of a shopkeeper Thomas Victory and his wife, Delia (née Irwin). After schooling, he read Celtic Studies at University College Dublin and Music at Trinity College Dublin, earning a doctorate in 1972. In April 1948 Victory married Geraldine Herity, and they had five children: Alma, Fiona, Isolde, Raymond, and Alan. this was performed by the Abbey Experimental Theatre Company in the Peacock Theatre, Dublin. His work was also part of the music event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Victory’s career was primarily in music administration, serving as director of music for Ireland’s national broadcasting station RTÉ from 1967 to 1982. He was a president of UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers, a fellow of the Royal Irish Academy of Music and a recipient of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the German Bundesverdienstkreuz. Selected works Orchestral Ensemble Solo piano Vocal Op

Gráinne Mulvey

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Gráinne Mulvey (born 10 March 1966) is an Irish composer. Biography Mulvey was born in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland, and studied with Eric Sweeney at Waterford Regional Technical College, Hormoz Farhat at Trinity College Dublin and Agustín Fernández at Queen’s University, Belfast. In 1999 she gained a DPhil in Composition at the University of York under the supervision of Nicola LeFanu. She currently holds the position of Professor of Composition at Technological University Dublin (formerly Dublin Institute of Technology) Conservatory of Music and Drama. In April 2010, she was elected to membership of Aosdána, the State-recognised affiliation of creative artists in Ireland. A CD Akanos & Other Works, dedicated to her recent work, was released in February 2014 on the Navona label. Style Gráinne Mulvey’s music is timbrally and rhythmically complex—a legacy of her work in the electroacoustic field. Her microtonally-inflected language derives ultimately from the natural harmonic series, placing her somewhat in the spectral tradition. As she herself has written: My music is increasingly concerned with a sense of place – with the natural world and mankind’s relationship with tha

Hope Temple

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Hope Temple, born as Alice Maude Davis (27 December 1859 – 10 May 1938) was an Irish songwriter and composer. She was also known as Mrs André Messager. Life Alice Davis was born in Dublin, Ireland, and was known professionally as Hope Temple. She moved with her family to England aged 12 and began composing ballads at the age of 14. Initially she studied music with the idea of becoming a pianist, but an injury in a riding accident caused her to give up her ambitions. Her teachers in London included John Francis Barnett (piano) and Edouard Silas (harmony and counterpoint). In the early 1890s she continued her studies in Paris with André Wormser and André Messager. In 1892, her operetta The Wooden Spoon was produced in London (also in New York, 1893), but she was known primarily for her songs, some of which became very popular. Her song My Lady’s Bower is sung by Molly Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses. In 1892, a reproduction of a photograph of her taken by Alex Bassano of Old Bond Street, London, was published in the Strand Magazine, as part of a series called “Types of English Beauty”. In 1894, she assisted Messager in writing the opera Mirette, and then became his second wife in 1895

Ina Boyle

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Ina Boyle (; 8 March 1889 – 10 March 1967) was an Irish composer. Her compositions encompass a broad spectrum of genres and include choral, chamber and orchestral works as well as opera, ballet and vocal music. While a number of her works, including The Magic Harp (1919), Colin Clout (1921), Gaelic Hymns (1923–24), Glencree (1924-27) and Wildgeese (1942), received acknowledgement and first performances, the majority of her compositions remained unpublished and unperformed during her lifetime. Biography Boyle was born in Bushey Park near Enniskerry, County Wicklow, and grew up in a restricted circle consisting of her mother, father and sister. Her first music lessons were with her father William Foster Boyle, who was curate at St. Patrick’s Church, Powerscourt, and she was given violin and cello lessons by her governess with her younger sister Phyllis. From the age of eleven, she studied theory and harmony with Samuel Myerscough, the English organist who founded the Leinster School of Music in 1904. From 1904 onwards, she also undertook lessons via correspondence with Charles Wood, who was married to Boyle’s cousin Charlotte Georgina Wills-Sandford. From 1910 Boyle took lessons with

James Lynam Molloy

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James Lynam Molloy (19 August 1837 – 4 February 1909) was an Irish composer, poet, and author. His songs were praised by his contemporaries; one said that he “will be remembered, or certainly his songs will, long after the ‘superior’ and so-called ‘art-songs’ of to-day are forgotten.” After leaving the College, he went to the Catholic University in Dublin, graduating in 1858. Further studies brought him to London, Paris, and Bonn, before he settled in London from about 1863 with a lawyer’s degree. Private secretary and war correspondent However, he never practiced law. Instead, he worked as a private secretary to the then attorney general. He was a war correspondent for the London Standard on the Franco-Prussian War and traveled widely, particularly in France. From 1880 he lived in Henley-on-Thames near London. Songs and songwriting Molloy’s first songs date from 1865 when he was 28 years old, but his career really took off with the regular London ballad concerts from the late 1860s and particularly during the 1870s. His most often quoted successes in his own lifetime were songs like Clochette (1867), Thady O’Flynn (1869), Eily’s Reason (1871), Dresden China (1875), Darby and Joan

Jane O'Leary

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Jane O’Leary (born 13 October 1946) is an American-born Irish musician and composer who has been living in Ireland since 1972. Biography Jane O’Leary (née Strong) was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She graduated summa com laude from Vassar College and studied with Milton Babbitt at Princeton University, where she received a Ph.D. in composition. She lectured at Swarthmore College for a year and moved to Ireland in 1972. O’Leary’s music has been performed internationally at concert venues including, in the U.S., the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center, Chicago Cultural Center and Carnegie Hall. She is the founder (in 1976), artistic director and pianist of the ensemble Concorde, which regularly performs contemporary music. In 1981, she was one of the founders of the organisation ‘Music for Galway’ and served as its chairperson from 1984 to 1992. Other honorary positions included membership of the board of directors of the National Concert Hall, Dublin (1986–1996), member of the Irish Arts Council (1998–2003), chairperson of the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin, and others. Since 1981 she has been a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s academy for creative artists. Since 2006, O’Leary teache

Jennifer Walshe

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Jennifer Walshe (born 1 June 1974) is an Irish composer, vocalist and artist. Biography Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1974. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Kevin Volans in Dublin and graduated from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) with a doctoral degree in composition in June 2002. Her chief teachers at Northwestern were Amnon Wolman and Michael Pisaro. In 2003–04 Walshe was a fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart; during 2004–05 she lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Walshe’s work has been performed all over the world by ensembles such as Alter Ego, ensemble recherche, Ensemble Resonanz, Apartment House, ensemble Intégrales, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Schlagquartett Köln, Crash Ensemble, Con Tempo Quartet, Trio Scordatura, Ensemble Ascolta, Champ d’Action, ensemble laboratorium, ensemble surplus, the Rilke Ensemble, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble, Bozzini Quartet, Callino Quartet, Ensemble 2000, Concorde, Kaleidoscop, Black Hair, Continuum, Musica Nova Consort, ensemble chronophonie, the Scott

John Buckley (composer)

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John Buckley (born 19 December 1951) is an Irish composer and pedagogue, a co-founder of the Ennis Summer School and a member of Aosdána. Biography John Buckley was born in Templeglantine, County Limerick. He grew up in a rural environment and was introduced to traditional music, learning the button accordion from local player Liam Moloney, when he was 9 years of age. In 1969, he moved to Dublin to study for the Teacher’s Diploma at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. Here he had his first opportunity to hear live classical and modern music including contemporary and avantgarde works by Irish composers including Aloys Fleischmann, Brian Boydell, John Kinsella, and Seóirse Bodley, as well as works by international composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki. He became a student at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin (1969–74), studying the flute with Doris Keogh and composition with A.J. Potter and James Wilson. He continued his musical studies with Alun Hoddinott in Cardiff, Wales (1978–82), Aloys Fleischmann in Cork (M.A. in composition, 1980), and briefly with John Cage during a summer school for composers and choreographers at Guildford, Surrey, in 1981. Initially working as a sec

John Field (composer)

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John Field (26 July 1782 – 23 January 1837) was an Irish pianist, composer and teacher widely credited as the inventor of the nocturne. While many of his contemporaries wrote in a similar style, Field was the first to use the term to apply to a character piece featuring a cantabile melody over an arpeggiated accompaniment. Born into a musical family in Dublin, he received his early education in the city, particularly with Tommaso Giordani. The family moved to London in 1793 where, under the tutelage of Muzio Clementi, Field soon became a famous and sought-after concert pianist. Together, they visited Paris, Vienna, and Saint Petersburg. Ambiguity surrounds Field’s decision to remain in the latter, but it is likely that Field acted as a sales representative for Clementi & Co.. Field was very highly regarded by his contemporaries and his playing and compositions influenced many major composers, including Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, and Franz Liszt. Although little is known of Field’s time in Russia, he undoubtedly contributed substantially to concerts and teaching, and to the development of the Russian piano school. Amongst his students were

John Francis Larchet

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John Francis Larchet (13 July 1884 – 10 August 1967) was an Irish composer and teacher. He studied at Trinity College Dublin (MusB 1915, MusD 1917), also at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) with Michele Esposito. Larchet was music director at the Abbey Theatre from 1908 to 1935 and was therefore responsible for the stage music accompanying many of the pivotal plays of the Irish Literary Renaissance, in particular those of William Butler Yeats, and also had his ballet Bluebeard performed there (in 1932), including the dancer Ninette de Valois. Although a prolific composer and arranger, his main contribution to Irish music was as a teacher: He taught harmony and counterpoint at the Royal Irish Academy of Music between 1920 and 1955 and was Professor of Music at University College Dublin between 1921 and 1958. Among his pupils were Frank Ll. Harrison (1905–1987), Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994), Michael Bowles (1909–1998), Frederick May (1911–1985), Walter Beckett (1914–1996), Joan Trimble (1915–2000), Brian Boydell (1917–2000), T.C. Kelly (1917–1985), Havelock Nelson (1917–1996), Gerard Victory (1921–1995), and Seóirse Bodley (1933–2023). Larchet was primarily a composer of min

John Kinsella (composer)

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John Kinsella (8 April 1932 – 9 November 2021) was an Irish composer and the country’s most prolific symphonist during the twentieth century. Life Kinsella was born in Dublin, Ireland, the younger brother of the poet and editor Thomas Kinsella. He studied viola at the College of Music (now the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama) in Dublin and took private composition lessons with Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair for a brief period. He developed an early interest in serialism and began to explore many of the techniques evolved by the contemporary European avant-garde. Supported by Gerard Victory and the conductor Hans Waldemar Rosen he had a number of works accepted for performance by RTÉ ensembles, including his first two string quartets (1960, 1968), a chamber concerto (1964), Montage (1965) for soprano and chamber ensemble, Two Pieces for String Orchestra (1965), and Montage II (1970) for orchestra. This group of works culminated in 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, he was appointed senior assistant in the music department of RTÉ. As he found himself growing increasingly

John McLachlan (composer)

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John McLachlan (born 5 March 1964) is an Irish composer. Life McLachlan was born in Dublin, son of the writer Leland Bardwell, and studied at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama (1982–6), the Royal Irish Academy of Music (1989–97), and Trinity College Dublin (BA 1988), where he received a Ph.D. in musicology in 1999 for a study of the relationship between analysis and compositional technique in the post-war avant-garde. He has also studied privately with Robert Hanson (1989–90) and Kevin Volans (1994–5). He now lives in Inishowen, County Donegal. He has written numerous articles for The Journal of Music in Ireland (2000–10; now the online Journal of Music). He was executive director of the Association of Irish Composers (AIC; 1998–2012), and in 2007 he was elected to Aosdána. McLachlan was the featured composer in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra’s “Horizons” series in 2003 and 2008. He has also represented Ireland at international festivals, including the ISCM World Music Days in Slovenia in 2003 Croatia in 2005 and New Zealand in 2022. In 2006, his work Grand Action was commissioned as a test piece for the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition. Music McLachlan’s music

Jolyon Jackson

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Jolyon Jackson (3 September 1948 – 18 December 1985) was an Irish musician and composer. Life Jackson was born in Malaya where his father, Patrick Jackson, was Deputy Commissioner of the police and would receive the CBE. His father was from County Limerick, of a Cork family; his mother was the singer Charmian Jenkinson. They lived at Poul-na-murrish, Annamoe, County Wicklow. He was educated in Salisbury Cathedral School and Bradfield College, Reading. He studied at Trinity College Dublin in the late 1960s, where he graduated in Arts and Music. He integrated himself into the musical life of Dublin, first with the group ‘Jazz Therapy’, and later with ‘Supply, Demand and Curve.’ He played cello, recorder and keyboards–including organ, piano and synthesizer. He married Teresa Le Jeune from Delgany, County Wicklow and they had a son, Linus. Jackson died in London of Hodgkin’s lymphoma on 18 December 1985, aged 37. Music The band ‘Supply, Demand & Curve’ was formed in 1970 and initially consisted of Jackson, Brian Masterson—who had played with Jackson in ‘Jazz Therapy’ during 1968–69—and Paddy Finney. They had a weekly gig at the Project Arts Centre and later played mainly in folk clubs

Joseph O'Kelly

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Joseph O’Kelly (29 January 1828 – 9 January 1885), composer, pianist and choral conductor, was the most prominent member of a family of Irish musicians in 19th- and early 20th-century France. He wrote nine operas, four cantatas, numerous piano pieces and songs as well as a limited amount of chamber music. Life O’Kelly, the first child of the Dublin-born piano teacher Joseph Kelly (1804–1856) and his wife Marie Duval (1803–1889), was born as Joseph Toussaint Kelly on 29 January 1828 in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Of his four brothers, two also became notable musicians: the music publisher Auguste O’Kelly (1829–1900) and the composer and pianist George O’Kelly (1831–1914). Around 1835 the family moved to Paris, where they lived at various addresses in the Faubourg Poissonnière area of the 9th arrondissement. Joseph received his early musical training from his father. As a foreign national he was not allowed to attend the Paris Conservatoire, instead he continued his education on the piano with George Alexander Osborne (1806–1893) (before 1844) and Frédéric Kalkbrenner (1785–1849) (mid-1840s) and in composition with Victor Dourlen (1780–1864) and Fromental Halévy (1799–1862). His earliest publi

Joseph Robinson (composer)

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Joseph Robinson (16 August 1815 – 23 August 1898) was an Irish composer, baritone, conductor, and teacher. Biography Joseph Robinson was the youngest son of Francis Robinson senior, a “writing master” at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and a founding member of the Philharmonic Society, Dublin. Joseph was a chorister at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, between 1823 and 1831. When his voice broke, he succeeded his brother John (1810–1844) as organist of Sandford Church, Dublin. He was a vicar choral (singer) at Christ Church (1836–43) and St Patrick’s (1843–8 and again 1854–6). Together with his three brothers Francis junior (c.1799–1872), William (1805–1881), and John (1810–1844) they were known as “the four wonderful brothers”, frequently performing glees and partsongs as a vocal quartet. In 1834, Robinson founded the Antient Concerts Society, a private choral society that grew to become Dublin’s leading orchestral and choral society and the “hub of Dublin’s musical life” in the mid-19th century and conducted it until 1862. Later he also conducted the University of Dublin Choral Society (1876–88) and the Philharmonic Society. At a performance of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s orator

Kane O'Hara

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Kane O’Hara (1711 or 1712 – 17 June 1782) was an Irish composer and playwright. Biography O’Hara was born at Templehouse, Connaught, Ireland, the second son of Kean O’Hara, high-sheriff of County Sligo. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1735. In 1757 he was a co-founder member, with the Earl of Mornington, of the Musical Academy in Dublin. His first publicly performed piece was the burletta Midas, stylistically a bridge between ballad opera and comic opera. The work mixes Irish, English, French and Italian popular airs in O’Hara’s arrangements with spoken recitatives. “O’Hara’s verse rarely rises above clever doggerel.” In 1774, Kane established a theatre in Dublin called Mr. Punch’s Patagonian Theatre, which in 1776 transferred to London, producing puppet show versions of operas and burlettas. He went blind in 1781 but continued his interest in theatre until his death in Dublin the following year. A number of his papers and manuscripts are held at the National Library of Ireland. Works *Midas: An English Burletta (Dublin, 1762) *The Golden Pippin: An English Burletta (London, 1773) *The two Misers: A Musical Farce (London, 1775) *April-Day. A Burletta (London, 1777) *To

Leo Maguire

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Patrick Leo Maguire (1903 – 17 December 1985) was an Irish singer, songwriter, and radio broadcaster. Born in Dublin’s inner city, Maguire trained as a baritone under Vincent O’Brien, John McCormack’s voice teacher. For many years he performed with the Dublin Operatic Society. Maguire was a prolific composer, writing over 100 songs. These include “Come to the Céile”, “The Old Killarney Hat”, “If You’ll Only Come Across the Seas to Ireland”, “The Dublin Saunter” (which he wrote for Noel Purcell) and “Eileen McManus” (recorded by Daniel O’Donnell). His most famous song is “The Whistling Gypsy”. It was also a hit in Ireland and later in the United States. Maguire also wrote parodies and humorous songs under the name Sylvester Gaffney. In parallel with his musical career, Maguire worked as a broadcaster on Radio Éireann. The programme with which he is most closely associated is the Walton’s Programme. This was a weekly sponsored show during which Maguire played recordings of popular Irish ballads. He finished each show with the catchphrase “if you feel like singing, do sing an Irish song.” The programme was broadcast for almost 30 years until its cancellation in January 1981. Reference

Lisa Hannigan

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Lisa Margaret Hannigan (born 12 February 1981) is an Irish musician, singer, composer, and voice actress. She began her musical career as a member of Damien Rice’s band. Since beginning her solo career in 2007, she has released three albums: Sea Sew (2008), Passenger (2011), and At Swim (2016). Hannigan’s music has received award nominations in Ireland and the United States. Hannigan drew attention in North America for her role as Blue Diamond in Steven Universe, an animated television series created by Rebecca Sugar. Early life and education Hannigan was born in Dublin but grew up in Kilcloon, County Meath, Ireland. in Kilcloon, then attended The King’s Hospital, a co-educational independent school at Palmerstown, Dublin, then enrolled at Trinity College Dublin to study French and art history. Career While in college, Hannigan met Damien Rice at a concert in Dublin in early 2001. Some of Hannigan’s live recordings were available through trading networks radio shows. These recordings included: “Willy” by Joni Mitchell, “Be My Husband” by Nina Simone (from the 1965 album Pastel Blues), “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin and “Love Hurts” by Boudleaux Bryant. Hannigan performed live with

Martin Mulvihill

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Martin Mulvihill (born in Ballygoughlin, County Limerick, Ireland in 1923; died 21 July 1987) was an Irish traditional musician, composer, teacher, and author. He composed roughly 25 tunes in the Irish traditional style. Although his mother Brigid Flynn played the concertina and fiddle, In 1971 the Mulvihill family relocated to New York City. Mary Rafferty (of Cherish the Ladies), Willie Kelly, and Patrick Clifford. In 1984, Mulvihill was honored with a NEA National Heritage Fellowship. In 1986, he self-published a songbook titled First Collection of Traditional Irish Music. On 21 July 1987, while on vacation in County Limerick, Ireland, he suffered a heart attack and died. All four of the Mulvihill children are musicians, with Brendan having become a noted performer and recording artist in the traditional Irish fiddle genre. Discography *Traditional Irish Fiddling from County Limerick (Green Linnet LP/cassette, 1978), with Mick Moloney *Irish Music: The Living Tradition (Green Linnet LP/cassette, 1978), Martin Mulvihill School *The Humors of Glin (Global Village cassette, 1986), with Donie O’Sullivan and Gabriel Fitzmaurice References External links * * *Biographical information *

Mary Dickenson-Auner

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Mary Dickenson-Auner (24 October 1880 – 25 May 1965) was an Irish violinist, composer, and music teacher. She wrote symphonies, oratorios, operas, and chamber works, with some of her early works appearing under the pseudonym Frank Donnell. During her career as a professional violinist, she performed the world premiere of Béla Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and also worked with Arnold Schoenberg. Early life and education Mary Frances Dorothea Dickenson was born in Dublin, Ireland, to a well-connected Irish family. Her mother was Mary Frances MacDonnell, the daughter of Hercules Henry Graves MacDonnell, a rector of Trinity College and cofounder of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. * Dreyfus, Kay, Margarethe Engelhardt-Krajanek, and Barbara Bold: Die Geige war ihr Leben. Drei Geigerinnen im Portrait (Strasshof: Vier Viertel Verlag, 2000), pp. 99–231.

Matthew Dubourg

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Matthew Dubourg (1703 – 3 July 1767) was an English violinist, conductor, and composer who spent most of his life in Ireland. Among other achievements, Dubourg led the orchestra at the premiere of Georg Friedrich Handel’s great oratorio Messiah. Biography Dubourg was born in London, the illegitimate son of a court dancing master, his mother’s identity is unknown. In 1712, at age 9, he performed a Corelli sonata standing on a stool at the home of Thomas Britton. At age 11, in 1714, he furthered his studies under the celebrated Italian violinist, composer and music theorist Francesco Geminiani. He performed a sonata at the Queen’s Theatre in March 1714, a benefit concert in May at Hickford’s Room, as well as many other performances during the London season. On 17 June 1727 he married Frances, the daughter of musician Bernard Gates at Stanmore, Middlesex. They had one child, a daughter named Elizabeth, who married oboist Redmond Simpson on 22 September 1753, who had one child. Dubourg served as concert-master from 1728 to 1764 in Dublin. The deed was witnessed by a woman named Elen: Du Bourg (sic) of the City of Dublin, Spinster, possibly a relative of Dubourg’s. Four years later, a D

Michael Holohan

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Michael Holohan (born 27 March 1956) is an Irish composer. Biography Michael Holohan was born in Drumcondra, Dublin. Music Holohan has composed for solo instrument, ensemble, orchestra, stage, choir and voice, and has collaborated with poets including Seamus Heaney, Tomas Tranströmer, Ivan Lalic and Paul Durcan. Critical reception and recognition Holohan’s work has been reviewed in Irish music journalism. Writing in The Journal of Music following a National Concert Hall composers’ showcase, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly described The Dream of Aengus as demonstrating Holohan’s “orchestrational control”, and characterised Portrait of the Artist as “captivating”, while noting the influence of traditional Irish music within his choral writing. Regional press coverage has also documented performances and recordings of his work, including reports on the release of the piano album Fields of Blue and White and concerts of his music in Drogheda. Selected works Orchestral *Cromwell (1994) *Leaves of Glass (1995) *Building Bridges (1995) Ensemble *Triangulum (1977) *Macehead (1992) *A Snail in my Prime (2000) – with text by Paul Durcan Choir *An Stoirm, Bagairt na Marbh and Sos (1981–84) – with

Michael Kelly (tenor)

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Michael Kelly (25 December 1762 – 9 October 1826) was an Irish tenor, composer and theatrical manager who made an international career of importance in musical history. One of the leading figures in British musical theatre around the turn of the nineteenth century, he was a close associate of playwright and poet Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He also became friends with some of the most famous musicians in Europe of the time such as Mozart, Haydn, Storace, and Paisiello, and created roles for the operas of all three composers. With his friend and fellow singer Nancy Storace, he was one of the first tenors of that era from Britain and Ireland to become famous in Italy and Austria. In Italy he was also known as O’Kelly or even Signor Ochelli. Although the primary source for his life is his Reminiscences, doubt has been cast on the reliability of his own account, and it has been said that ’ a ny statement of Kelly’s is immediately suspect.’ Dublin beginnings Michael Kelly’s father Thomas, a Roman Catholic wine merchant and dancing-master, held an important social position as Master of Ceremonies at Dublin Castle, the seat of British government in Ireland. Michael was given a serious music

Michael McGlynn

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Michael McGlynn (born 11 May 1964) is an Irish composer and the founder and artistic director of the vocal ensemble Anúna, which he established in Dublin in 1987 as the principal vehicle for the creation, performance, and recording of his music. His work draws on medieval polyphony, Irish traditional music, and contemporary compositional language, and has been discussed in scholarship as part of the development of a distinctively Irish choral voice. Career Early life and Anúna Michael McGlynn was born in Dublin and attended Coláiste na Rinne and Blackrock College. He studied Music and English at University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 and a Bachelor of Music degree in 1986. In 1991 the ensemble adopted the name Anúna. During the late 1980s and early 1990s McGlynn developed the body of choral work that would form the core of his compositional reputation, including the Celtic Mass (1989–91) and Invocation (1993), both subsequently the subject of detailed scholarly analysis. In 1990 he wrote music for the Gate Theatre production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, in a new adaptation by Frank McGuinness directed by Adrian Noble, which

Patrick Cassidy (composer)

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Patrick Cassidy is an Irish orchestral, choral, and film score composer. Early life and education Cassidy was born in Claremorris, County Mayo in Ireland. He received a BSc in applied mathematics from the University of Limerick in 1985 and supported his early compositional activities with a day job as a statistician and technology analyst. Work Cassidy is known for his narrative cantatas – works he has written for orchestra and choir based on Irish mythology – and for the aria “Vide Cor Meum” originally composed for the film Hannibal, directed by Ridley Scott. The libretto for Cassidy’s “Vide Cor Meum” was taken from Dante’s first sonnet in La Vita Nuova. Cassidy’s opera Dante premiered at Theater Hof in Bavaria in 2024 The Children of Lir, released in September 1993, remained at number one in the Irish classical charts for a full year. It was the first cantata written in the Irish language. Other albums include Cruit (arrangements of 17th- and 18th-century Irish harp music with Cassidy as the soloist) and Deirdre of the Sorrows, another cantata in the Irish language, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Tallis Chamber Choir in 1998. In 2004, Immortal Memory was rele

Paul Whitty

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Paul Whitty (born 1970) is an England-based experimental composer and sound artist born in Northern Ireland. Biography Paul Whitty was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in 1970 and is currently professor of composition at Oxford Brookes University. He is a founder and director of the Sonic Art Research Unit (SARU). He studied with Roger Marsh, Magnus Lindberg, Colin Matthews, Vinko Globokar and Michael Finnissy. His work has been performed by the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Expose, IXION, Michael Finnissy, rout , Philip Howard, and Mieko Kanno amongst others, and his music has featured at festivals including Brighton, Ultima in Oslo, the Gaudeamus Music Week in Amsterdam, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the 54th Venice Biennale and at State of the Nation in London. He has received awards, including from the Arts Council England, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Britten-Pears Foundation, and the British Council. Pianist Philip Howard titled his first album, Decoding Skin (2003), after one of his compositions. Whitty is a founder, along with the composers Sam Hayden and Paul Newland, of the ensemble rout , which has made concert tours in the UK, appear

Percy French

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William Percy French (1 May 1854 – 24 January 1920) was an Irish songwriter, author, poet, entertainer and painter. Life French was born at Clooneyquinn House, near Tulsk, County Roscommon, the son of an Anglo-Irish landlord, Christopher French, and Susan Emma French (née Percy). He was the third of nine children. His younger sister, Emily later Emily de Burgh Daly was also a writer. He was educated in England at Kirk Langley and Windermere College before going to Foyle College in Derry and wrote his first successful song while studying at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1877 for a smoking concert. The song, “Abdul Abulbul Amir”, was published in 200 copies for £5 and French sold each copy for 2s6d, making a small fortune. However, he omitted to register the copyright on the song and lost all the subsequent income from the royalties as it was re-published without his name. The royalties were restored to his widow and daughters after his death. Although he lost copyright, French always claimed authorship and did so on the sleeve of his song “Slattery’s Mounted Fut” (1889) and in every issue of the weekly The Jarvey. Brendan O’Dowda claimed to have discovered, via the popularity of v

Philip Cogan

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Philip Cogan (1750 – 3 February 1833) was an Irish composer, pianist, and conductor. Biography Cogan was born in Cork, where he was a choirboy and vicar choral at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral. In 1772, he was appointed a stipendiary at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, but left the post a few months later due to ill health. From 1780 to 1806 he was organist at St Patrick’s Cathedral. He also conducted the orchestras of the Smock Alley and Crow Street theatres “to the detriment of his church duties”. In fact, Cogan’s compositions for the stage outnumber those for the church by far. He not only wrote operas himself (The Rape of Proserpine, 1776; The Ruling Passion, 1778; etc.), but also collaborated with other Dublin composers, as in The Contract (1782, with John Andrew Stevenson, Tommaso Giordani, and one Laurent). In 1787, Cogan was a co-founder of the Irish Musical Fund Society. He was an active participant in Dublin’s musical life for many years including performances in the annual “Commemoration of Handel” festivals at the Rotunda and at various charity concerts in both Catholic and Protestant churches. Cogan was a much sought-after teacher and counted among his pupils a number of no

Philip Hammond (composer)

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Philip Hammond (born 5 May 1951), is an Irish composer. He has also been a teacher, writer and broadcaster. He has written for The Brodsky String Quartet, the Ulster Orchestra and Lontano. He has also written for the flautist James Galway, pianists Barry Douglas, Michael McHale, and Anthony Capparelli, the British violinist Tasmin Little, the Russian pianist Nicolai Demidenko, and singers Ann Murray, Suzanne Murphy, Robin, Tritschler, and Sarah Walker. Early life and education Hammond was born in Belfast. After studying at Cabin Hill Preparatory School and Campbell College, Belfast, Hammond graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 1974 as a Bachelor of Music and Master of Arts. In 2003 he was awarded a Doctorate of Music from Queen’s. Career as a composer While teaching at Cabin Hill, Hammond regularly performed as a pianist and accompanist with the mezzo-soprano Daphne Arlow and in a piano duo with Michael McGuffin, performing and presenting for BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Three and RTE. His first major commission, Thanatos (1977), was written for the choir of the Royal Victoria Hospital. It became controversial when what was to have been its first live performance was disrupt

Raymond Deane

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Raymond Deane (born 27 January 1953) is an Irish composer. Biography Deane was born in Tuam, County Galway and brought up on Achill Island, County Mayo. From 1963 he lived in Dublin, where initially he studied the piano at the then College of Music with Fionn Ó Lochlainn. He studied at University College Dublin, graduating in 1974, and became a founding member of the Association of Young Irish Composers, a predecessor of today’s Association of Irish Composers. He won a number of awards as a pianist. In 1974, Deane won a scholarship to study with Gerald Bennett at the Musikakademie in Basle, Switzerland. He moved on to Cologne as a student of Mauricio Kagel but was persuaded to change to studying with Karlheinz Stockhausen, which Deane abandoned after six months “due to Stockhausen’s lack of engagement with his students at this period”. With a DAAD scholarship, Deane continued his studies with Isang Yun in Berlin. In the 1991 Accents Festival in Dublin, he was the featured composer (with Kurtág), also at the 1999 Sligo New Music Festival (with Roger Doyle). He represented Ireland in several ISCM festivals (Mexico City, Manchester, Hong Kong), and works were performed at the festival

René Villa

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José René Villafuerte Flores (born 26 January 1997), known as René Villa, is a Costa Rican singer-songwriter, model and actor, based in Ireland. Biography René Villa was born on 26 January 1997 in Nicoya. As a child, Villa was heavily into Carlos Rivera, Luis Fonsi, Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey. Especially Carey influenced his music style, to bring different types of music together. Throughout his career, René has worked with Costa Rican musician and producer Alan Shepard, as well as Nelss, Carlox, among countless others. As a solo artist, he has released two albums and EPs that defy category, traversing intimate singer songwriter, pop, Latin pop, pop rock, electronic and dance. René submitted the first songs he ever wrote, and found himself making his debut with “Dónde Estás”, under the name of Shory Flores. Before changing his artist name, the songs were released by his old names, including “Juntos (Al Amanecer)” and “Te Quiero (Pa’ Mi)”. During 2020, Villa participated on Shepard’s album The Right Time, which is the featuring in ”A Tu Lado" under the pseudo name of “Jay Flores”. In 2021, the album Rawr was released in the U.K., which contains nine songs, including “It’s Y

Rhoda Coghill

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Rhoda Sinclair Coghill (14 October 1903 – 9 February 2000) was an Irish pianist, composer and poet. Biography Rhoda Coghill was born in Dublin and studied from the age of eight with Patricia Read at the Leinster School of Music. Between 1913 and 1925 she won 21 prizes at the Feis Ceoil (Irish music competition), among them first prizes for piano solo, piano accompaniment and piano duet, after 1923 for composition. In that year she completed her largest score, the rhapsody Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking for tenor solo, mixed chorus and orchestra, to a text by Walt Whitman. Coghill also played double bass in the orchestras of the Dublin Philharmonic Society and Radio Éireann. She continued her piano studies with Arthur Schnabel in Berlin (1927–8) to whom she had been recommended by Fritz Brase. In 1939 she took a position as the accompanist of Radio Éireann, where she remained until 1969. In this capacity she has worked with major performers of her day, both Irish and international, and gave exemplary interpretations of contemporary Irish works. She was known for remarkable sight-reading capacities and her absolute ear. She also appeared as a concerto soloist, reliably attractin

Rhona Clarke

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Rhona Clarke (born 1958) is an Irish composer. Biography Rhona Clarke was born in Dublin. She studied music at University College Dublin, pursued composition studies with John Buckley and James Wilson, and completed a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast under the supervision of Michael Alcorn. Clarke has received commissions from organisations including the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Philharmonia Chorus, Chamber Choir Ireland, the Choir of the Chapels Royal, the Cork International Choral Festival, Concorde, Music Network and the National Concert Hall. Her work has represented Ireland at both the International Rostrum of Composers and the ISCM World Music Days. In 2014 she was the featured composer in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra’s Horizons series. Her orchestral work SHIFT, commissioned by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, was premiered at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on 14 January 2014 by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gavin Maloney, and later that year represented Ireland at the International Rostrum of Composers in Helsinki. Since 2009 she has collaborated with the visual artist Marie Hanlon on projects involving film, live perfo

Richard Woodward (organist)

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Richard Woodward the younger (c.1743/44 – 22 November 1777) was an Irish composer and organist, probably of English birth. Biography Woodward was probably born in Salisbury and became a choirboy of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 1751, following the appointment of his father (of the same name) from Salisbury to the Dublin cathedral choir as a lay vicar choral. In 1764 Woodward was awarded a gold medal by the Hibernian Catch Club (which has been referred to as the oldest surviving musical society in Europe) for his canon Let the Words of My Mouth, which is inscribed on his memorial at Christ Church Cathedral. In 1771, Trinity College conferred upon him the degree of MusD. He had several students, including British composer Harriet Wainwright. At the age of 22, in 1765, Woodward was appointed organist at Christ Church Cathedral as successor to George Walsh and choral vicar at St Patrick’s Cathedral. His memorial records that he was “Preceptor to the Children of the two Choirs, Dublin.” He died in Dublin aged 33. Music Woodward was a composer of Anglican church music. His folio of glees and anthems formed the first collection of cathedral music published by an Irish composer. Wood

Robert Prescott Stewart

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Sir Robert Prescott Stewart (16 December 1825 – 24 March 1894) was an Irish composer, organist, conductor, and teacher – one of the most influential classical musicians in 19th-century Ireland. Biography Stewart was born in Dublin; his grandfather had moved to Ireland from the Lowlands of Scotland in 1780. He displayed an early talent for music, fostered by his mother, who had been a pupil of Johann Bernhard Logier. He didn’t study music in an academic sense, but received some thorough grounding in church music when he joined the choir school of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 1833, where he came under the care and tutelage of Rev. John Finlayson and the Master of the Boys, Richard William Beaty. His biographer O.J. Vignoles also mentions Archdeacon Magee and the Dean’s vicar, John C. Crosthwaite, as having had influence on Stewart’s musical education. In 1844 he succeeded John Robinson as cathedral organist, a position he held until his death, and also became the organist at St. Patrick’s Cathedral from 1852 to 1861. In 1846 he succeeded Joseph Robinson as conductor of the University of Dublin Choral Society, another position he held for the rest of his life. He received the d

Ronan Hardiman

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Ronan Hardiman (born 19 May 1961) is an Irish composer, famous for his soundtracks to Michael Flatley’s dance shows Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames and Celtic Tiger Live. Early life Hardiman was born in Dublin on 19 May 1961. His father was an Irish broadcasting executive. Hardiman listened to rock & roll and pop as a child. He has three sisters, including film director Neasa Hardiman and one brother, and they all play traditional musical instruments. He attended St. Kilian’s German School and the Royal Academy of Music. Career In 1978, at the age of 17, Hardiman began working as a clerk at the Bank of Ireland, a position he held for 12 years. He occasionally performed in local bands. In 1990, he quit his job and then began composing material based on Irish traditions for radio and television. He wrote the theme music to the documentary My Riviera. His TV work included commissions for the title music for RTÉ Irish National Television Network News, and the original score for the natural history series Waterways, He also wrote music for commercials for Guinness and the Irish National Lottery. In motion pictures, Hardiman earned acclaim for his score to the 1996 feature My Friend Jo

Seán Ó Riada

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Seán Ó Riada (; born John Reidy; 1 August 1931 – 3 October 1971) was an Irish composer and arranger of Irish traditional music. Through his incorporation of modern and traditional techniques he became the single most influential figure in the revival of Irish traditional music during the 1960s. Born in Cork City, Ó Riada’s career began as a music director at Radio Éireann from 1954, after which he worked at the Abbey Theatre from 1955 to 1962. He lectured in music at University College Cork from 1963 until his death in 1971. He became a household name in Ireland through his participation in Ceoltóirí Chualann, compositions, writings and broadcasts. His best-known pieces in the classical tradition include Nomos No. 1: Hercules Dux Ferrariae (1957), but he became particularly famous for his film scores Mise Éire (1959) and Saoirse? (1960). He left a lasting influence as founder and director of the ensemble Ceoltóirí Chualann (from 1961). His music still endures: his mass in Irish is still sung to this day in many churches in the Irish-speaking regions of Ireland. Ó Riada died in 1971, aged 40. Early life Ó Riada was born John Reidy in Cork City. He spent his early years in Adare, Cou

Seóirse Bodley

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Seóirse Bodley (; 4 April 1933 – 17 November 2023) was an Irish composer and associate professor of music at University College Dublin (UCD). He was the first composer to become a Saoi of Aosdána, in 2008. Bodley is widely regarded as one of the most important composers of twentieth-century art music in Ireland, having been “integral to Irish musical life since the second half of the twentieth century, not just as a composer, but also as a teacher, arranger, accompanist, adjudicator, broadcaster, and conductor”. Biography Bodley was born George Pascal Bodley in Dublin. His father was George James Bodley (1879–1956), an employee of the London Midland & Scottish Railway Company (Dublin office), and later of the Dublin Ports and Docks Board. His mother, Mary (née Gough, 1891–1977), worked for the Guinness brewery. He attended schools in the Dublin suburbs of Phibsboro and Glasnevin before he moved at the age of nine to Coláiste Mhuire at Parnell Square. He later studied at the School of Commerce in Rathmines, where he obtained his Leaving Certificate. Music was encouraged in his parents’ home, and he received initial lessons on the mandolin from his father and on the piano from his mo

Shaun Davey

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Shaun Davey (born 18 January 1948) is an Irish composer. Early years Shaun Davey was born in Belfast in 1948 and attended Rockport School in County Down. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in the history of Art in 1971. He then took a master’s degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. In the late 1970s, he made his first recording, Davey and Morris, with James Morris, and guest artist Dónal Lunny, produced by Tony Hooper of The Strawbs. He worked as a composer of advertising jingles, including “The Pride of the Herd” for the National Dairy Council, 7up, Bank of Ireland and many more. Orchestral music relating to Ireland Davey’s reputation is built on four large-scale concert works based on Irish history, all using uilleann pipes and folk tunes. #The Brendan Voyage (1980) depicts the journey taken by explorer Tim Severin, in 1978, from Ireland across the Atlantic to Newfoundland in a leather currach. Severin’s journey was a recreation of the one allegedly made by Saint Brendan. The style is similar to that of film composer John Williams. The work uses the traditional uilleann pipes to represent the small currach, while the rest of the orchestra represents the condit

Siobhán Cleary

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Siobhán Cleary (born 10 May 1970) is an Irish composer. She has also worked as a film composer, and is a member of Aosdána. Early life and education Born in Dublin, Cleary started to compose from an early age, often writing pieces while she was supposed to be practising at the piano. When she began to study music at Maynooth University, she was initially inspired by Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, and soon afterwards by the works of the Irish composer Gerald Barry, the French Olivier Messiaen and the Hungarian György Ligeti. Composition Inspired by the alchemists’ Opus Alchymicum which describes how cheaper metals are transmuted into gold, Cleary’s orchestral work Alchemy (2001) is, like the stages in the Opus, presented in four parts: it evolves from the slow nigrendo, the moderate albedo, the strong citronatus, and the burning rubedo. The work was performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in January 2002. Her tone poem Cokaygne (2009), which, like Alchemy, was commissioned by RTÉ for the National Symphony Orchestra, is based on a poem and old sources which evoke a land of extreme luxury and contentment. The elaborately orchestrated piece was performed by the RTÉ National Symphon

Stephen McNeff

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Stephen McNeff (born 6 September 1951) is an Irish composer, best known for his work in contemporary theatre and opera. Biography Stephen McNeff was born in Belfast and grew up in south Wales. He studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and undertook post-graduate research at the University of Exeter. He was Associate Director of Manchester University’s Contact Theatre in 1979−80. From 1980−84, as Composer in Residence and Associate Director of the Music Theatre Studio Ensemble of the Banff Centre and then Comus Theatre Canada, he won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for his opera The Secret Garden (1985) based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. His theatre music in the 1990s saw McNeff receive a Scotsman award for the National Youth Music Theatre production of Aesop at the 1991 Edinburgh Festival before an unconventional staging of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland by the Donmar for the BOC Covent Garden festival in 1994 brought him wider attention. He was appointed ‘Composer-in-the-House’ with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and later became Composer in Residence. During his three-year tenure, he wrote a number of major works for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and

T. C. Kelly

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Thomas Christopher Kelly (5 December 1917 – 31 March 1985) was an Irish composer, teacher and conductor. Life T. C. Kelly was born in Wexford and studied with John F. Larchet at University College Dublin (BMus, 1943). After having spent a period as organist and choirmaster in Newry, County Down, he was appointed music master at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare (1952–1985), a position which involved teaching, playing organ in the boys’ chapel and conducting the school choir and orchestra. He won several national competitions with this choir. He was a well-known composer in mid-20th-century Ireland, albeit in a conservative idiom. Kelly died in Dublin. Music Kelly’s prolific output consists mainly of skilful arrangements of Irish traditional music for orchestra, mixed choir or small instrumental ensembles such as violin and piano. Although mainly known as a composer of miniatures, he also wrote a three-movement piano concerto (1960) and three full-scale congregational masses. Many of his orchestral arrangements and some original works were radio commissions for the then Radio Éireann Light Orchestra (today the RTÉ Concert Orchestra). In the 1960s and ’70s some of his works we

Thomas Augustine Geary

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Thomas Augustine Geary (Timothy Geary) (1775 – November 1801) was an Irish composer, pianist and organist, with a precocious talent particularly in vocal and piano writing. Biography Geary’s original first name was Timothy; it is presumed that he chose “Thomas Augustine” as artist’s names in admiration for Thomas Augustine Arne. He was a choirboy and choral scholar at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, where he occasionally assisted the cathedral organist, Philip Cogan. In 1792, he performed a concerto by Dussek at a charity concert at the Rotunda, Dublin, at which one of his canzonets, Soft is the Zephyr’s Breezy Wing, was also performed. According to W.H.G. Flood, Geary studied at Trinity College, Dublin, but there is no evidence for this claim. According to an 1818 source, “labouring under some depression of mind he rushed out of the house, and was found drowned in the canal”. In Brian Boydell’s opinion, “his premature death undoubtedly robbed Irish music of a sensitive and promising talent”. Music Geary was the first Irish composer to systematically explore the form of popular airs or folktunes with variations, which were very much in demand at his time. He also excelled in vocal

Thomas Carter (composer)

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Thomas Carter (May 1769 – 8 November 1800) was an Irish composer resident in London during the most creative years of his short life. Life Carter probably belonged to an extended family of Dublin musicians including, among others, Timothy Carter (c. 1715–1772) and (Charles) Thomas Carter (c. 1735–1804), with whose works his were often confused as both published music in London in the 1790s and used to abbreviate their name as “T. Carter”. Other sources suggest that he was an illegitimate son of the Earl of Inchiquin. He was born in Dublin and seems to have shown an exceptional musical talent since his childhood. Sponsored by the Earl of Inchiquin, he went to study music in Naples, around 1788, where he became a protégé of Sir William Hamilton. He then went to Calcutta, India, to become the theatre’s music director, but had to relocate to England in July 1789 for health reasons. He married Mary Wells from Cookham, Berkshire, in 1793. When he died in London at age 31, the Gentleman’s Magazine described him as “a victim, in early life, to the fatal ravages of the liver complaint”. Music In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980 edition), Roger Fiske made the first attem

Thomas O'Brien Butler

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Thomas O’Brien Butler (3 November 1861 – 7 May 1915; lost on the Lusitania), was an Irish composer who wrote the Irish-language opera Muirgheis (1903). Biography O’Brien Butler, as he was generally known, was born in Caherciveen, County Kerry, the youngest child of Pierce Butler (c.1804–1873), a shopkeeper in the village, and Ellen Webb (c.1818–1876). There is no source for his correct surname. Baker’s Dictionary indicates that his surname was Whitwell; when he registered at the Royal College of Music in London, his name was noted as Thomas Whitwell-Butler. He does not seem to have been directly related to another O’Brien Butler family from Ireland who lost three brothers in World War I. He does however claim heritage to Lady Margaret O’Brien in his collection Seven Original Irish Melodies dedicating the first song ‘Kincora; or the Lament for King Brian’ to “My Great Mother Lady Margaret O’Brien, daughter of Donough O’Brien, Earl of Thomond.” Before going to London he grew up in an environment steeped in traditional music. His musical education began in Italy, After around 1900 he mainly lived in Kilmashogue, in the mountains above Rathfarnham, Dublin, in a house he had called Muir

Turlough O'Carolan

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Turlough O’Carolan ( ; 1670 – 25 March 1738) was a blind Celtic harper, composer and singer in Ireland whose great fame is due to his gift for melodic composition. Although not a composer in the classical sense, Carolan is considered by some to be Ireland’s national composer. Harpers in the old Irish tradition were still living as late as 1792, and ten, including Arthur O’Neill, Patrick Quin and Donnchadh Ó hÁmsaigh, attended the Belfast Harp Festival. Ó hÁmsaigh played some of Carolan’s music, but disliked it for being too modern. Some of Carolan’s own compositions show influences of the style of continental classical music, whereas others such as Farewell to Music reflect a much older style of “Gaelic Harping”. Biography Carolan was born in 1670 in Nobber, County Meath, where his father was a blacksmith. The family, who were said to be a branch of the Mac Brádaigh sept of County Cavan (Carolan’s great-grandfather, Shane Grana O’Carrolan, was chieftain of his sept in 1607 ), forfeited their estates during the civil wars and moved from Meath in 1684 to Ballyfarnon, County Roscommon, on the invitation of the family of MacDermot Roe of Alderford House. In Roscommon, his father took a

W. H. Grattan Flood

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Chevalier William Henry Grattan Flood (baptised 1 November 1857 – 6 August 1928) was an Irish author, composer, musicologist and historian. As a writer and ecclesiastical composer, his personal contributions to Irish music produced enduring works, although he is regarded today as controversial due to the inaccuracy of some of his work. As a historian, his output was prolific on topics of local and national historical or biographical interest. In 1917, Flood was awarded the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice by Pope Benedict XV and in 1922 was elevated by Pope Leo XIII to the Order of St Gregory with the title Chevalier, thereafter he was often called “Chevalier Flood”. Biography Flood was born in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland. His family had a great influence on his education. He was born to William and Catherine (FitzSimon) Flood, the Master and Matron of the Lismore Union Workhouse. He had one older sister (Maria), and five brothers (Francis (his twin brother), Patrick, Frederick, George and James (who died in infancy). Flood received his elementary education at his grandfather’s (Andrew FitzSimon) boys academy in Lismore, and was given music lessons by his aunt, Elizabet

Walter Beckett (composer)

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Walter Keohler Beckett (27 July 1914 – 3 April 1996) was an Irish composer, teacher and music critic. He was a cousin of the writer Samuel Beckett. Life Beckett was born in Dublin. His parents were Elizabeth Ethel Beckett (née Keller) and James Beckett, a politician and builder. He studied organ with George Hewson and harmony with John F. Larchet at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), in addition to music at Trinity College Dublin where he was conferred with a Mus.D. (Doctor of Music) in 1942. He lived from 1946 to 1963 in Venice, where he taught English and piano; he also wrote reviews from abroad for the Irish Times and made a series of orchestral arrangements of Irish traditional music for Radio Éireann. In 1963 he moved to England, where he taught music at various schools before returning to Ireland in 1970 to succeed A.J. Potter at the RIAM as a professor of harmony and counterpoint; however, after having suffered a stroke in 1985, he had to retire. In 1986 he was elected a member of Aosdána, and an Honorary Fellow of the RIAM in 1990. He died in Dublin in 1996. Music Beckett’s more ambitious works from the 1940s and 1950s are a Suite for Orchestra (1945), Four Higgins So

Wellington Guernsey

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Wellington Guernsey (correct name: William Greville Hudson Guernsey) (8 June 1817 – 13 November 1885) was an Irish composer, poet, and military man. Biography Guernsey was born in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, studied briefly as a boy with the well-known Italian opera composer Saverio Mercadante at Lisbon during 1827–8, returning to Ireland probably during the early 1830s to work in Cork and Dublin. Of his early career a newspaper correspondent wrote in 1858: “Mr Wellington Guernsey … was, I believe, born in Ireland, his father having been master of a military band, and was formerly in the employment of Messrs. Robinson and Bussell, music-sellers, Westmoreland Street. He had previously been employed in the shop of Mr. Boden, music-seller, Cork. Guernsey was dismissed from Messrs. Robinson and Bussell’s under suspicious circumstances, and he then set up a music establishment for himself. His house in Nassau Street was unfortunately burned, and being insured, the company at first refused to pay the full amount of insurance, but a compromise for one-half the sum was accepted by Mr. Guernsey. The gentleman then proceeded to London, where he married an actress, and figured very speedily a

William Henry Kearns

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William Henry Kearns (1794 – 28 December 1846) was an Irish violinist, conductor and composer active mainly in England. Biography Kearns was born in Dublin and, like many of his Irish contemporaries, emigrated to England where he settled at least since 1817. Nothing is known about his musical education, but in London he was employed as a violinist in the orchestra of the Covent Garden opera house (principal first violin for the season 1818–9) and as organist at the Verulam Episcopal Chapel, Lambeth. On 16 July 1817 his operetta Bachelor’s Wives, or The British at Brussels received its first performance at the English Opera House (EOH) and “enjoyed a substantial run”. Kearns did not compose any further operas, but was later employed at the EOH as musical advisor to the directors, Samuel James Arnold and William Hawes. He also conducted noteworthy performances of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, Louis Spohr’s Zemire und Azor and Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable. Weber’s original copy of the overture to Oberon was given to Kearns by William Hawes in 1827 “as a token of regard and friendship”. He also didn’t give up the violin; among other events he played at the Royal Musica

William Vincent Wallace

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

William Vincent Wallace (11 March 1812 – 12 October 1865) was an Irish composer and pianist. In his day, he was famous on three continents as a double virtuoso on violin and piano. Nowadays, he is mainly remembered as an opera composer of note, with key works such as Maritana (1845) and Lurline (1847/60), but he also wrote a large amount of piano music (including some virtuoso pieces) that was much in vogue in the 19th century. His more modest output of songs and ballads, equally wide-ranging in style and difficulty, was also popular in his day, some numbers being associated with famous singers of the time. Early life Wallace was born at Colbeck Street, Waterford, Ireland. Both of his parents were Irish; his father, Spencer Wallace of County Mayo, one of four children, who was born in Killala, County Mayo in 1789, became a regimental bandmaster with the North Mayo Militia based in Ballina. William was born while the regiment was stationed for one year in Waterford, one of several successive postings in Ireland and the UK. The family returned to Ballina some four years later, in 1816, and William spent his formative years there, taking an active part in his father’s band and already