Michael McInerney
Waltons New School of Music Faculty
Harmonica • Guitar • Introducing Harmonica
Michael began playing the harmonica in his late teens, and he is currently one of Ireland’s most accomplished harmonica players and teachers. While primarily a blues and jazz player, he is as adept with classical repertoire as he is with Irish traditional music, folk and rock/pop. Also an excellent guitar player and teacher, he started learning guitar initially as a way of trying to make sense of the musical jargon that confounded him as he tried to teach himself the harmonica, and he has since explored blues, jazz, flamenco, slide guitar, Irish traditional, some classical and a little ragtime – though his main interests remain blues, slide and fingerstyle guitar. In addition to teaching with the New School since 1995, Michael also teaches in his own studio, Irish traditional harmonica at Ceoltóirí Chluain Tarbh, and at Visionaries School of the Arts, a school for the blind and visually impaired. And he has facilitated workshops introducing the harmonica to children in The Ark and lectured on blues history and appreciation at UCD. Michael has composed and performed a range of music for a number of theatre productions, and as a session musician he has recorded for both film and television. He has also performed with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and collaborated with such renowned harmonica players as Don Baker, Richard Hunter, Brendan Power and Mick Kinsella, to name a few. Michael holds an LGSM (P), DipJazz from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (he is the first person in Ireland to be awarded a third-level qualification in harmonica), a BA in English and Philosophy from NUI Maynooth, and a Diploma in Drama Studies and an MA in Modern Drama from University College Dublin. 
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