Dr Darragh Gilleece is a pianist, educator and composer based in Ireland. He is an Examiner for the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), Ireland’s leading conservatoire. For this, he assesses music examinations and recitals nationally. Darragh previously was an Assistant Lecturer in Piano at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He teaches piano at Maynooth University and sits on the Deputy Panel of Assistant Lecturers in Piano at the TUD Conservatoire. Darragh’s academic background includes a BA International in Music, which featured an Erasmus year at the University of Vienna, a Masters in Performance and Musicology, an Associate Diploma in Piano Pedagogy from RIAM and a Licentiate in Piano Performance from Trinity College London. He completed his PhD in Musicology as a recipient of the prestigious John and Pat Hume Scholarship Award. For his PhD, he focused on Schubert’s piano duets and the role of piano duets in pedagogy. He has presented for conferences at both national and international level, including for the Schubert Institute UK and the Society for Musicology in Ireland. Throughout his career, he has received several accolades, including awards from the Swiss and Austrian Embassies.

Darragh collaborated with QuietlifeMusic (UK) on piano method books that are used as teaching material in RIAM. Several of his compositions were published in these. Another one of his compositions, entitled Get up n’ Go Blues, featured on the 2025 RIAM primary grade album. His composition Swagger was recently published in the RIAM 2026 grade 2 album. In 2025, two of his compositions, Starry Nights and Grandpa’s Bass Clef Blues, were selected as set pieces with Universal Music Exams. Darragh released his sole authored piano repertoire book, First Steps 1 and 2, under Forsyth Publications.