Waltons New School of Music is one of Ireland’s largest music schools, established in 1994, with a current faculty of 60 teachers and some 1400 students, of all ages and skill levels.
‘…a centre for all sorts of musical activity…and all this while promoting excellence…’ – The Irish Times [1]
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Affiliated with the well-known Waltons Music shops in Dublin, the New School was founded in 1994 by John Mardirosian and Aideen Walton[2]. The school began with a faculty of 10 teachers and around 150 students but grew rapidly both in size and in the range of its lesson and course offerings, as well as its external programmes.
The school currently offers tuition in the broadest range of instruments and styles (classical, Irish traditional, jazz, world and popular music) of any music school in Ireland. Areas of study include:
Tuition is offered for students of all ages and levels, those learning simply for pleasure and others preparing for grade examinations (Associated Board, Royal Irish Academy of Music, Trinity Guildhall, London College of Music); performers' and teachers' diplomas; Leaving Certificate Music practicals; and recitals and competitions.
The New School’s annual scholarship competition in June awards full-year tuition scholarships in three categories – Young Student of the Year, Mature Student of the Year and Most Promising Beginner – as well as an Ensemble Prize, Songwriting/Composition Prize, Piano Prize and Guitar Prize. Candidates are selected from teacher nominations in May. Winners perform at the school’s end-of-year concert, which takes place at the National Concert Hall.
Since 2001, the school's Outreach Workshops have taken place at over 300 primary schools, post-primary schools, youth centres and special needs organisations nationwide, as well as at the Ark and National Concert Hall, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin, and arts centres throughout the greater Dublin area.
Introduced in 2004, the school's In-School Music Programme consists of a range of music courses and lessons that take place on-site at primary schools, post-primary schools and youth centres throughout the greater Dublin area, either during or after school hours.
The goal of the school's Outreach Programme is to provide opportunities for active music making that may not otherwise be available in the primary and post-primary school classroom or in the local community; to expand children and young people's musical knowledge; and to encourage imaginative thinking, creativity, a positive self image and a respect for their own and others’ cultural heritage.
Based on its experience with adult learners, the school developed a Music at Work programme in 2007, with the aim of bringing group instrumental and vocal tuition to workplaces throughout the Dublin area and environs. Music at Work includes group courses in a range of instruments as well as ‘Company Choir’.
Between 1998 and 2003, the school ran a series of ‘weekend workshops’ on various aspects of the Leaving Certificate music syllabus at university centres and other venues around the country for several thousand music students. Three course books on the syllabus, all published by Waltons, resulted from these workshops.
In September 2000 and 2001 the school ran a ‘world music summer school’, focusing on Cuban music and dance, that included concerts, workshops, master classes and other educational events.[4]
Developed and run by the New School, Waltons World Masters is an annual series that began in spring 2003 with the aim of bringing to Ireland some of the world’s most extraordinary musicians and performing groups. Since that time the following artists and groups have performed in Ireland’s National Concert Hall, as well as participating in workshops, master classes, public interviews and other educational events: