David Mooney is Head of Keyboard Studies at  TU Dublin  Conservatoire. He received his musical education as a scholarship student at the Schola Cantorum, St. Finian’s College, Mullingar, studying piano with Mabel Swainson and organ and composition with Fr. Frank MacNamara. A prizewinner in both instruments, he continued his piano studies with Swainson and organ with Dr Patrick Devine, while taking a BA in Music and French and a MA in Music at Maynooth University. In 1999 he completed a PhD in Musicology at University College Dublin.

In 1988 he joined the staff of TUDublin Conservatoire where he has lectured in piano and academic studies at junior, graduate and post-graduate level. He has been Head of Keyboard Studies at the Conservatoire since 2001. Many of his piano students have been prizewinners in international junior competitions, Feis Ceoil and other national competitions. He is an experienced accompanist, examiner and adjudicator and is a world-appointed judge for the WPTA Piano Competition.

His research interests focus principally on performance practice issues relating to French music in the period 1870-1930. He is an international authority on the life and works of Poldowski (Lady Irene Dean Paul). Other interests include French art song and the development of piano pedagogy. He has contributed to the latest edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Encyclopedia of Ireland and the Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland. He has also gained a reputation as a successful choral arranger whose works are performed throughout the US and Europe. The highly-acclaimed David Mooney Irish Choral Series is published by ECSchirmer in the US and Stainer and Bell in the UK.

David is a past  chairman of Feis Ceoil (Ireland’s premier classical  music festival) and of the Swainson Trust and is currently on the board of directors of Feis Ceoil. He is a regular contributor to Lyric FM and is the founder of the Progressive Piano Teacher, an annual summer school for piano teachers at TUDublin Conservatoire. He has been extern examiner at many institutions in Ireland and the UK and has given piano masterclasses in Ireland, the UK and Hong Kong.