Studies
Margaret Ann Ireland revealed in her childhood that her destiny lay in music. At age three she began to pick out tunes on the piano, and she gave her first solo recital at age ten. The following years, from 1939 to 1945, she studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with piano pedagogue Hayunga Carman, and composers Healey Willan and Arnold Walter. It was Mr. Carman who gave her a solid foundation in piano technique. She continued her studies in New York, enlarging her repertoire with the Polish pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski (1945-1950), then Friedrich Wuehrer in Salzburg and Vienna (1951), and Marguerite Long in Paris (1952).
Repertoire
Recital programs covered a wide range of standard repertoire, along with contemporary works from Canada, the United States, South America, Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Russia.
Piano concerto performances with orchestras were largely those of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Although she rarely performed chamber works for piano with strings, she played with the Solway Quartet (Canada) and CBC Chamber Orchestras in Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax, as well as the Boyd Neel Chamber Orchestra.
Margaret Ann Ireland in concert gown,
London 1951
 Score to Schubert's Moment Musical Opus 94, no. 5 with
handwritten annotations by Margaret Ann Ireland. |  Margaret Ann Ireland and former teacher, Arnold Walter, of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. |