Mr Paul McBride

Paul McBride has been associated with music and music making in and around Belfast and throughout Ireland for all his adult life. First he studied at St. Malachy’s College and then Queen’s University, Belfast, gaining his BMus and MA in Twentieth Century Music before entering the teaching profession.

Paul’s association with St. Malachy’s College was renewed in 1995 when he was appointed Head of Music. As its director he continue to build upon the fine tradition of music making which he inherited and endeavoured to increase the popularity, level of participation and quality of performance throughout the College Music Department. The five years back at his old stomping ground saw the Department grow in new found confidence, in which students were given greater responsibility for their own achievement, and an image which has ensured that the Department is spoken about not only in Belfast, but North and South of the border and throughout these islands. Performances at the Waterfront Hall, Ulster Hall and the Royal Albert Hall, countless successes at local festivals and membership of local and national youth orchestras testify to his singular achievements there.

In 2000, having completed another master’s degree in Educational Management and while studying for the Professional Qualification for Headship, Paul was appointed Vice Principal of Assumption Grammar School, Ballynahinch. Subsequently in April 2008, Paul was appointed Principal and will take up this role from August 2008. Although most of his responsibilities are in curricular administration, he enjoys the opportunity of sharing his musical experiences with the students in one of Northern Ireland’s leading grammar schools. With wide experience in many genres of music, Paul has nonetheless channelled his energies primarily into encouraging and nurturing and enthusiastic appreciation of the performance and the interpretation of classical music with young musicians in Belfast and beyond.

An experienced teacher of violin and chamber music, he has worked for the City of Belfast School of Music on a part time basis for some twenty years and has conducted the String and Training Orchestras. In 1999 he was appointed as an executive member of the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras. It was during this time that he took the Training Orchestra on its first ever venture outside the Greater Belfast area to perform at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. This particular Orchestra reached new heights again in 2001 when it performed to a capacity audience at the Schools Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. Having taken a year away from the School of Music in 2004-05, Paul has now returned as conductor of the City of Belfast Youth Orchestra. He is excited with this challenge and since his appointment he has worked to further develop the Cbyo building upon its previous success. In his first season as conductor Paul conducted the Orchestra’s fiftieth anniversary concert with former member Sir James Galway. In 2006 he once again returned to the Royal Albert Hall, where he conducted the Cbyo in the finale of the Schools Proms and in July 2007, he presided over the Orchestra’s first ever tour of Spain.