RORY MCINROY BA (Hons), PGCED

Piano, keyboards
Telephone: 01993 845778
Mobile: 07866 561116
Email: rory_mcinroy@hotmail.com

As well as being a piano teacher with some 15 years experience teaching both adults and children, Rory is also an experienced gigging musician who has worked as a professional pianist and has been performing for 23 years. Over that time he has played with a huge range of bands, encompassing Jazz, Swing, Soul, Rock, Rhythm and Blues, Funk, Latin American and African music, as well as working as a solo performer. He has also worked as an accompanist for choirs and has been musical director for a twenty-piece swing band.

Rory is also a qualified schoolteacher, in which capacity he has set up and run several school orchestras and helped developed musical curricula for primary schools. An abiding interest in jazz education led him to experiment initially with improvisation workshops in secondary schools for several years, and then to set up a business called Swing School, running such workshops as one-day improvisation courses for all instruments, aimed at adults and teenagers. Contact Rory directly for more information about Swing School workshops.

As a piano teacher, Rory believes in making music fun and encouraging pupils to be creative and find their own voice as a musician. As a result, he specialises in teaching popular forms of music such as Jazz and Rock, and encourages pupils to try their hand at both improvisation and composition, believing that makes a more fully rounded musician with a greater understanding of the inner workings of music. However, he also teaches the ABRSM grade exams, both classical and jazz, for those pupils who wish to take them, and has entered pupils in local music festivals.

Currently, as well as being an in-demand freelance pianist on the jazz circuit in Oxfordshire, Rory can be heard regularly with the Manhattan Trio playing jazz and swing, and with the popular 8-piece soul music function band, Life and Soul.