Head of Keyboard Studies

Email: david.mooney@TUDublin.ie

PhD MA LRSM

Head of Keyboard Studies

David Mooney received his musical education as a scholarship student at the Schola Cantorum, St Finian’s College, Mullingar, studying piano with Dr Mabel Swainson and organ and composition with Fr Frank MacNamara. He continued his studies at NUI Maynooth, graduating with a BA in Music and French and a MA in Music. In 1999 he completed a PhD in Musicology at University College Dublin. He won many prizes in piano and organ, including Feis Ceoil, and was a finalist in the RTE Young Musician of the Future.

In 1988 he joined the staff of TUDublin Conservatoire where he has lectured in piano and academic studies at graduate and postgraduate level. Many of his piano students have been prizewinners in International junior competitions, Feis Ceoil and other national competitions. They have been invited to participate in festivals including Boyle Arts Festival, West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival and Westport Music Festival.

An experienced accompanist, examiner and lecturer, he has given piano masterclsses in Ireland, UK and Hong Kong. He is a world-appointed judge for the WPTA Piano Competition and has adjudicated at competitions and festivals in Ireland and the UK.

Dr Mooney’s research interests focus principally on performance practice issues relating to French music in the period 1870-1930. He is an international authority on the life and works of Poldowski (Lady Irene Dean Paul). Other interests include musico-textual issues in French art song and the development of piano pedagogy. He has contributed to the latest edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the Encyclopedia of Ireland and the Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland. His forthcoming book A Guide to the Songs of Poldowski is being published by Peter Lang, Oxford in 2023.

In recent years, he has also gained a reputation as a successful choral arranger whose works are performed throughout the US and Europe. The highly-acclaimed David Mooney Irish Choral Series is published by ECSchirmer in Boston and Stainer and Bell in the UK. Recordings of his work are featured on Scenes of an Irish Christmas and Ireland’s Voices for Peace (both on the Viking Records label), Cór (Arsis) and Christmas with the Palestrina Choir.

David Mooney is a former chairman of Feis Ceoil and Chairman of The Friends of Mabel and Ronald Swainson