Lecturer in Piano and Music Education

Dr Gemma O’Herlihy was born in Cork and began learning piano with her mother Mary O’Herlihy and Geraldine Neeson. After her studies with Jan Čáp at the Cork School of Music, she studied performance at the Conservatory of Vienna Austria with Leonid Brumberg, and performed in Europe, USA, and Australasia. To further her teaching experience, she undertook PGCE secondary music education at Leeds University UK and taught in Baltimore USA, Leeds, Bradford, and Dublin.  She completed her MA at Maynooth University and her doctoral research at University College London. She presented her research at SMEI conferences in Cork, Dublin, and Limerick, the Guildhall Reflective Conservatoire conference, as well as the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in USA, and the Institute of Education UCL in London. Her research examined the development of beginner pianists’ musicianship through learning to play by ear rather than only learning to read music.