Maeghan Dineen

Maeghan Dineen (Oceanside, New York, 1989) is a composer, teacher, and scholar now based in Limerick City, Ireland. 

Maeghan originally completed a BA in Music Composition (2011) at the State University of New York at Geneseo under the direction Dr. Anneliese Weibel.  During her time at Geneseo she was significantly influenced by ethnomusicologist, James Kimball, whose folk music teachings can be heard in her compositional works from this time period.  Following on from her undergraduate degree, Maeghan had the great privilege of studying electroacoustic music under Dr. Ambrose Field at the University of York, where she received an MA in Music Composition from in 2012.  Dr. Field had a profound effect on the way that Maeghan now listens to music, and how she composes electroacoustically.  Despite the abundance of music technology available to us, she follows Dr. Field’s philosophy of using minimally-processed field recordings to create music with. 

In 2014 Maeghan was selected to receive a Graduate Arts Award from America’s Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.  With this grant she attended the Irish World Academy of the University of Limerick, Ireland, where she studied for two years towards an MA in Irish Traditional Music Performance (2016) for the fiddle & piano.  Since completing this degree Maeghan continues to transcribe and study historical recordings from 1910-1970 in Ireland & America, attempting to keep the integrity of Irish music in her own fiddle playing in the face of the uniform style perpetuated by the Internet.  

While she continues to develop & arrange compositions and to play music in her local Irish community, Maeghan's true passion lies in music education.  She has contributed to several music programmes, most recently Music Generation Clare, an organisation co-funded by U2 bringing music tuition to children of disadvantaged backgrounds.  Maeghan is devoted to student achievement, and feels it her duty to pass on the musical knowledge given to her by lecturers and teachers whose wisdom is truly priceless.