US-born composer Jane O’Leary, who has lived in Ireland since 1972 and has made an immeasurable contribution to contemporary Irish classical music, looks back on her career.

As a young child, she longed to play the piano, later going on study at Vassar College, where she was introduced to composition, and Princeton, where she developed her skills as a composer and met her Irish husband.

When she moved to Ireland in 1972, no one was playing contemporary music on a regular basis and women composers were practically unheard of. Jane set about changing that, and among her many achievements are founding Ireland’s first contemporary music group, the Concorde Ensemble, and being a driving force behind Music for Galway, leading to the appointment of the ConTempo Quartet as Galway Music Residency Ensemble in Residence. We hear from musicians in both those ensembles about working with Jane and performing her music.

We also get a glimpse at the composer at work, as she converses over Zoom with pianists Maria Sumareva and Andrew Rosenblum, who have commissioned her to write a piece for them, and liaises with Paul Roe, who has commissioned her to compose for a group of his students, the Dublin Clarinet Ensemble. Jane has also inspired a younger generation of Irish composers, like Judith Ring, who has admired her work since she first heard it, and is grateful to Jane for the work she has done to promote the work of many other composers.

The Musician That Is Me is produced by Claire Cunningham (Rockfinch Ltd) and funded by Coimisiún na Meán with the Television Licence Fee and by RTÉ. Producer for RTÉ lyric fm: Eoin O’Kelly.

After broadcast, the programme will be available as a Lyric Feature broadcast on the usual podcast platforms.