Welcome to the official website of the Ina Boyle Society Limited, a newly registered charity. Established in 2020, the IBSL’s mission is to advance public education and appreciation of the life and works of Ina Boyle and other neglected Irish composers, particularly women, whose music deserves to be heard more widely.

The Ina Boyle Society Ltd. works closely with Irish and British cultural and and academic organisations to deliver Anglo-Irish partnerships in fulfilling its mission. The IBSL is chaired by Katie Rowan, a relative of the Boyle family.

We are delighted that thanks to the support of the Boyle family, a number of Ina Boyle’s unpublished works will be available to order from the Contemporary Music Centre in Dublin (CMC). To view a list of works and see which ones are available in typeset format, please see the compositions section of this site.

The IBSL Board of Directors are grateful for the support of: the late Revd Canon Bob Reed, Precentor of St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin; Roy Stanley, Music librarian Trinity College Dublin; Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland; Dr. Orla Shannon (funded by the Irish Research Council); David Scott; The Ambache Trust; The Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust; Iain Burnside; The Wigmore Hall; Michael Barton BSc BFP FCA.

Our Patrons

DIRECTORS

KATIE ROWAN (Chair) is a relative of the Boyle family. Originally studied singing with Elizabeth Downey in Waterford.  In a career of thirty years in the charitable sector, including developing music and art opportunities for people with special needs.  Project partners included, Institute of Education London University, Royal College of Art, City Literary Institute (London), Royal Academy, and BBC (Songs of Praise).  On retirement she has taken an active part in supporting young musicians and composers through organisations such Help Musicians UK and Irish Heritage, of which she was Joint Artistic Director.  She is a research associate of the Research Foundation of Music In Ireland. 

RONALD CORP composer and conductor Ronald Corp is the founder and Artistic Director of the New London Orchestra and the New London Children’s Choir and also Musical Director of the London Chorus and the Highgate Choral Society. With the New London Orchestra he has recorded a number of award winning CDs for Hyperion. He has written an extensive body of works including the cantatas And all the trumpets sounded, Laudamus, Mary's Song, Adonai Echad, A New Song and The Hound of Heaven as well as works for unaccompanied choir (Dhammapada, Things I didn't say).  His instrumental compositions include a symphony, concertos for piano and for cello, three string quartets (number one titled 'The Bustard') and a clarinet quintet ('Crawhall'). His work for children's voices include the opera The Ice Mountain. He has written over one hundred songs and recent cycles include Songs of the Elder Sisters, Fields of the fallen, Dawn on the Somme and Letters from Lony. Many of his works are recorded on CD. His experience and expertise in choral directing are crystallised in the textbook, The Choral Singer's Companion.  Ronald Corp was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List 2012.

MAURICE WREN Maurice worked extensively in the refugee protection and homelessness fields for many years, with a range of senior leadership roles at Shelter, HACT, Asylum Aid and the British Refugee Council, where he was Chief Executive from 2012 until his retirement in 2020. Maurice is presently a Trustee of the NGOs Migrant Voice and the European Network on Statelessness, having previously chaired the Governing Boards of Innisfree Housing Association and his local primary school in Hackney. He was made a Patron of the charity Action Foundation in 2016 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Edinburgh in 2017 in recognition of his humanitarian work with refugees. He is a keen amateur musician and presently sings with the chamber choir Londinium.

ANGELA BRADY OBE PPRIBA FRIAI PDSA Dubliner Angela Brady is an architect director of award winning practice Brady Mallalieu Architects based in North London who specialise in sustainable housing. Angela was President of the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects 2011-2013) - voted the most effective president in the past 28 years - (AJ Survey). She has given over 100 keynote speeches worldwide on architecture, diversity, sustainable city making and low carbon design. Angela has made 3 primetime TV series promoting Design. The ”Designing Ireland” 4 part documentary series with co-writer/presenter Dr Sandra O’Connell, is available on RTE Player and Amazon Prime worldwide. As chair of Women in Architecture UK (2000-2006) she instigated the “DiverseCity" exhibition promoting diversity of people in Architecture - which went to 34 cities worldwide over 6 years. Angela chaired of Womens Irish Network UK (2020) and has a great network of communities in UK and Ireland. Angela is also a fused glass artist and curates the #10HandsCrafts group in international craft shows. Angela sits on a few Irish cultural committees linking UK and Ireland.

DR MICHAEL BOYLE is a composer, educator, and researcher, and a relative of Ina Boyle. He read for his MPhil at the University of Cambridge and received his PhD from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He is currently Teaching Fellow in Music Technology at the University of Leeds, Associate Lecturer at the Open University, and is a founding Committee Member of the Royal Musical Association Composer-Performer Collaboration Study Group. As well as ongoing compositional projects and teaching, he is pursuing research into the musical imagination and the relationship between composer, technology, and performer.

ARTISTIC Advisory Committee

DR ITA BEAUSANG (patron) is Emeritus lecturer in musicology at Technological University Dublin Conservatoire and a research fellow of the Research Foundation of Music in Ireland.  She has been active in research in the areas of music education, piano pedagogy, music therapy, the music of Ireland and music criticism. Ita was a research assistant to Professor Aloys Fleischmann for his contribution in A New History of Ireland Vol. 6 (OUP, 1996). Honorary life member of the Society of Musicology in Ireland. Advisory editor for The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland.(UCD Press, 2013)  Has researched the life and music of Ina Boyle since 2006.

DR KERRY HOUSTON is a former President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, and a member of the editorial board of The Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland.  He is a founder member of the Irish working group of RISMI and director of the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland (musicresearch.ie). He is a committee member of the Irish Society of Archives.  Kerry holds doctoral degree in musicology from Trinity College Dublin and a Master’s degree in Theology from the Pontifical University (Maynooth). He is Head of Department of Academic Studies at TU Dublin Conservatoire and Director of Music, Trinity College Chapel, Dublin. 

PROF. NICOLA LEFANU (patron) is a well known composer whose works have been widely played, broadcast and recorded. Commission include BBC, festivals in UK and internationally. She is active as a teacher, composer and director,  Emeritus Professor of Music York University(UK)  1994 -2008, and Director of Irish Composition Summer School. Recent premieres included ‘Tokaido Road - a journey after Hiroshige’(music theatre) and ‘Threnody’ for orchestra.  She is daughter of composer Elizabeth Maconchy, long term friend of Ina Boyle. 

IAN FOX is a distinguished writer, music critic and broadcaster.  He wrote his first criticism for the Irish Times in 1969 and has been music critic of Sunday Tribune since 1988. He is Irish correspondent for Opera (London) and Opera Canada and is a member of the Critics Circle London. He founded and edited the first Irish classical music magazine ‘Counterpoint‘, in 1969. He is a Governor of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and a Council member of Wexford Festival Opera.

DAVID BYERS is a distinguished composer, writer, musicologist and broadcaster, former BBC producer for Music and Arts, and former Chief Executive, Ulster Orchestra.  Has served on many committees and boards: Arts Council Northern Ireland, the Irish Arts Council, Opera Northern Ireland, Ulster Orchestra Society, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Wexford Festival Opera, Royal Irish Academy of Music and National Concert Hall (Dublin).  He has edited and typeset Ina Boyle’s String Quartet and ‘Still Falls the Rain’ for contralto and string quartet.

KENNETH BAIRD is the European Opera Centre's founding chief executive. He was previously the senior executive of the Aldeburgh Foundation - responsible for the Aldeburgh Festival, the programme at Snape Maltings Concert Hall and the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies; and subsequently Music Director of the Arts Council of Great Britain. He sits on a number of arts boards including Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

EMMA O’KEEFFE is a final year PhD researcher at TU Dublin Conservatoire. Her thesis, ‘No Coward Soul is Mine’: A Critical Edition of Select Works by Ina Boyle (1889 – 1967), examines five of Ina Boyle’s works written between 1913 and 1958. To date, Emma’s critical editions have resulted in a number of performances and recordings of Boyle’s music including contributions to the albums Cello Abbey (2016) and Ina Boyle (2018), the first CD dedicated entirely to the composer’s orchestral works.