Lecturer in Music History, Research Supervisor
Róisín Maher is a lecturer on the BMus degree course where she teaches first- and second-year music history modules, as well as courses on Women in Music, Opera Studies, and music from 1890 to present and supervises final year and MA dissertations.
Róisín is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of Finding a Voice, a festival that celebrates music by women composers across genres and eras and that takes place every year around International Women’s Day in her home town of Clonmel. The festival is an example of feminist research and activism combined with public engagement that has grown organically out her pedagogical work at MTU Cork School of Music and, over the last eight years has featured performances by CSM staff, students and graduates, alongside leading Irish and international artists.
Róisín studied music and French at UCC, and Opera Analysis and Criticism at the University of Leeds. After graduating, she spent two and a half years in Sierra Leone, West Africa, lecturing at a teacher-training college with Voluntary Services Overseas. She taught music history on the BMusEd course at Trinity College Dublin while pursuing doctoral studies there, as well as at the National College of Ireland and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.
In a parallel career in arts administration for over 30 years, Róisín has worked in a variety of posts from Marketing Assistant to Director with organisations including Universal Edition Music Publishers (London), Opera North (Leeds), Opera Theatre Company, the Contemporary Music Centre, Crash Ensemble, East Cork Early Music Festival and the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras, as well as organising a five-day Gerald Barry music festival in Dublin for RTÉ Lyric fm.