Talk:Margaret Ann Ireland/Temp

Margaret Ann Ireland
Born	Margaret Ann Ireland (1928-03-23)March 23, 1928 Winnipeg, Manitoba
Died	June 30, 2018(2018-06-30) (aged 90) Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Education	Toronto Conservatory of Music (1939-1945), studied with Hayuga Carman and Healey Willan, among others
Known for	classical pianist; producer
Spouse(s)	Norwood Carter (d. 1971); Walter Nagel (d. 2004)
Awards	Canada 125 Medal and an honourary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of New Brunswick
Elected	member of the New Brunswick Arts Board (1990)

Margaret Ann Ireland LLD (March 23, 1928 – June 20, 2018) was a classical pianist known in Canada and abroad, who also was a broadcast producer.

Career

Margaret Ann Ireland grew up in Toronto where she attended public school and Havergal College. She studied piano as a child with different teachers. She trained at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, where her teacher was Hayuga Carman for piano, and other teachers for composition, among them Healey Willan and Arnold Walter (1934-1945). She composed her musical work Pioneer Lullaby when she was ten; it was published in 1939. (The first page is in the Margaret Ann Ireland file at the Literature, Music, Performing Arts, Archives Branch, Library and Archives Canada / Government of Canada). She debuted with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) at Massey Hall in December 1944, playing Beethoven's Pianoforte Concerto in C Minor (Op. 37), (the program is in the Margaret Ann Ireland, Encyclopedia of Music in Canada file, Literature, Music, Performing Arts, Archives Branch, Library and Archives Canada / Government of Canada). It received praise from the Toronto Globe and Mail which said her execution was imbued with musical intelligence. She continued her studies abroad with distinguished teachers such as Mieczyslaw Horszowski in New York (1945-1950), Friedrich Wuehrer in Vienna (1950) and Marguerite Long in Paris (1952). After her debut with the TSO, she gave lecture recitals for the CBC. In London, her debut was in 1954. In Moscow, her debut was in 1960 at the Bolshoi Hall, in New York, her debut was in 1963 at Town Hall to acclaim by the N. Y. Times and others. Her repertory included works by Arnold Newman and Oskar Morawetz who dedicated his Fantasy in D Minor to her.

She toured as a recitalist in Canada, several times in Europe and twice in the USSR (1960 and 1962). In 1960, on her tour, the conductor of the Kharkov state orchestra described her as a high-class performer. Her program included works by Brahms, Chopin, Bach, and Prokofiev, among others. She recalled of the 1960 tour the audience's enthusiasm and that she was often asked to play Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with orchestras. She described the tour of 12 concerts in six cities in detail in an article in The Atlantic Advocate, saying that she had wonderful audiences. She was praised by Tass news agency which quoted the composer Balis Dvarionas as saying she played the Rachmaninoff concerto with virtuosity and deep interpretation.

In 1963 and 1964, she recorded three titles for Capitol Records of Canada Ltd.: Margaret Ann Ireland plays Schubert, Rachmaninoff,, Margaret Ann Ireland plays Villa-Lobos, Granados,, and Margaret Ann Ireland plays music of the Polish masters, The Rachmaninoff works she recorded, Six Preludes from Opus 23, were said to be consistently interesting and bold. She was described as one of the classical music staples of Capitol Records. In 1967, after 22 years, she withdrew from the stage. Her farewell performance of Schubert, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and others was criticized by the Toronto Globe and Mail for its strictly technical quality, having little sense of the magic of the music. The Toronto Star said there were times in the concert when the piano seemed more of a burden than a way of life.

She joined the Canadian Broadcasting Company in Toronto in 1969 as a radio producer for the National Music Department. in charge of programs such as Afternoon Concert and received a Major Armstrong Award of Merit for Musicscope (the CBC’s flagship series 1971-1972), Chicago, in 1972. In 1972, she moved to New York as a freelance broadcaster and created in time well over 1000 programs for major networks. In 1973, she prepared radio documentaries on Arthur Rubinstein and others. In 1975 and 1976, she produced radio documentaries on women conductors, Fritz Kreisler and the a series of 13 documentaries on Stravinsky. In 1976, she became a production consultant to the Broadcasting Foundation of America. She retired to Saint John, NB, in 1986 and was appointed a member of the New Brunswick Arts Board in 1990.

She donated several personal items to the sound and moving images section of the CBC Archives (available at https://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/shift-nb/segment/15608307). Her awards included the Canada 125 Medal and an honourary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of New Brunswick. After her death, she asked that family and friends listen to Rachmaninoff's Vocalise Opus 34 No. 14 as they remembered her, perhaps intending this melancholy music which listeners sometimes have compared to a caged bird trying to escape, to provide insight into her life.