The house was always alive with the sound of music. Pauline McAuley had a musical upbringing in Dundalk, Co Louth. Her mother coached her in singing and taught her the piano. Music was her hobby and her interest. And her school, Dun Lughaidh Secondary School, had a very active music department also.
Today, having studied music at third-level and after a year as a music teacher, she has decided to focus on a career in arts administration. She is currently completing a post-graduate diploma in arts administration at UCD.
While she was a second-level student, she said she didn't think of music as a career. In fact, she completed her Leaving Cert with the aim of studying nursing. But then, she says, "something clicked along the way" and she decided to repeat her Leaving Cert, improve her grades, take some time out to concentrate on singing at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and apply for a place on the TCD degree programme in music education.
"Obviously I didn't want to go back to repeat," she recalls. "But it was the best year I spent and I matured in that year as well. I did six subjects rather than seven but they were very accommodating at the school."
There was a class of nine - eight young women and one young man on the four-year degree programme in TCD. McAuley says a career as a mezzo-soprano was beckoning. The hours of dedicated practice and concentration are part and parcel of the commitment this involves.
In the summer of 1995, McAuley answered a job advert and went to in Listowel, Co Kerry, to St John's Art Centre. "I began to see what arts administration was all about. I enjoyed the whole experience. It opened my mind to this kind of work."
After a summer working in Germany, she got involved in the organisation of the international piano competition.
All along, she explains, "the only (music) options I'd known about were either performance or teaching". However she's delighted with the way things have worked out. After graduating last year, she spent a year teaching in UCD. Her aim was to stay within the music industry. A job in arts administration will be, she says, "a people job". It's important to understand what musicians need, she explains. It's important "to appreciate the needs of performers, their practice times, their rehearsal spaces, the travelling arrangements".
McAuley is currently sitting exams. She'll be ready for the jobs' market in June. In the meantime, she's looking forward to a career where she'll be "meeting new people each day.
"I like being involved in the background, in setting it up, in organising events. At the end of the day, that's as important as the people going up and performing."
