Mary McAuliffe

The works of Irish composer Mary McAuliffe, using various styles to express her Celtic background, have been widely performed in North America as well as Ireland. McAuliffe was largely self-taught as a composer. She found outlets for her work when she began teaching in high schools and writing original music for choirs and young instrumentalists. "My music," McAuliffe has said, "is melodic, immediately accessible. Medieval, traditional, modal, deeply spiritual elements feature strongly." She traveled to the U.S. in 1997 and immediately found audiences for music with these qualities, especially when it referred back to the Irish past. Many of McAuliffe's vocal works have set her own texts. Back in Ireland, her instrumental works have been used in university exams. She has remained active into the 2010s.