SUMMER SCHOOL OF EARLY IRISH HARP
ROY JOHNSTON
Lecturer, Scoil na gCláirseach 2006
Roy Johnston, on his retirement from salaried employment, found himself free to indulge a lifelong musical hobby. He has been a member of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and chair of its music and opera committee, a member of the Governors of the Linen Hall Library and of the board of Castleward Opera, and a trustee of the Grand Opera House. After some years of writing, lecturing and broadcasting on opera and musical history he wrote a dissertation on 'Concerts in the musical life of Belfast to 1874' for which Queen's University awarded him a doctorate in 1996, and which he has drawn on in his book 'Bunting's Messiah' which was published by The Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society in 2003.