Frank McNamara (musician)

Frank McNamara is an internationally known arranger, conductor, composer, and pianist from Ireland.

McNamara's career began at the age of 11, when he first appeared on Irish national television. Frank attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated with music honours. He received the most outstanding pupil award at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he studied composition with James Wilson and piano with Rhonda Marshall. Peter Katin also instructed Frank in piano in London and Canada.

Irish audiences are well familiar with McNamara's work as Music Director of RTÉ's The Late Late Show for 20 years. He was the arranger and producer of two consecutive winners at the Eurovision Song Contest. He has composed TV themes and other music for Irish television. He has written numerous works for orchestra and has released several albums, which include his orchestral arrangements and original compositions. Those albums have resulted in two platinum albums and two gold albums.

McNamara also has an acting credit to his name. He was Reuben the pianist in Ronan O'Leary's Hello Stranger (story by Truman Capote) filmed in 1992. The movie starred Daniel J. Travanti. McNamara wrote the title song Hello Stranger and performed the song in the movie.

In 1994 and 1995 he signed up with the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RÚV) and rearranged Iceland's Eurovision Song Contest entries. He conducted the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra on the final night for the live performances of these entries during the Eurovision Song Contest which was hosted in Ireland in both these years.

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