Margaret Ann Ireland

Ireland, Margaret Ann

Margaret Ann Ireland (m Carter, later m Nagel). Pianist, producer, b Winnipeg 23 Mar 1928. Raised in Toronto, Margaret Ireland began piano lessons at age six. At age eight, she received a scholarship to the Toronto Conservatory of Music, where her teachers included Healey Willan and Hayunga Carman 1939-45. An early composition, "Pioneer Lullaby," was published by Gordon V. Thompson Ltd in 1939. Ireland later studied under Mieczyslaw Horszowski in New York 1945-50, Friedrich Wuehrer in Salzburg and Vienna in 1951, and Marguerite Long in Paris in 1952.

Ireland's Career as Pianist
After her debut 5 Dec 1944 with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra she gave lecture recitals 1949-52 for CBC radio and toured as a recitalist and broadcaster several times in Europe and twice (1960 and 1962) in the USSR. She made her New York debut at Town Hall in 1963. Her repertoire included works by Robert Fleming, Oskar Morawetz (who dedicated his Fantasy in D Minor to her), and Arnold Walter. She made several recordings for Capitol. She withdrew from performance in 1967 and joined CBC Toronto in 1969 as a producer.

Her Career as Producer

She prepared such radio programs as 'Afternoon Concert' and 'Music Heritage'. Her series 'Musicscope' (1971-2) received a Major Armstrong Award (Chicago, 1972). In 1972 she moved to New York as a freelance broadcaster. Altogether she produced over 1000 radio programs for major networks in Canada, the USA, Europe, and the Middle East. Her documentaries on Marian Anderson and Artur Rubinstein in 1973 and on Jascha Heifetz in 1974, and her 13-week series 'The Life and Times of Igor Stravinsky' in 1976 were all created in the USA but also broadcast on CBC radio. 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.