R.M. Levey

Biographical notes
 R.M. LEVEY. Violinist Richard Michael O'Shauhnessy (later Levey) was born in Dublin in 1811. At the age of 15 he became a member of the Theatre Royal Orchestra in Dublin, and later became leader of the organization, holding the position for forty-six years until the theater was destroyed by fire in 1880. He was a prolific composer (notably of overtures) and a conductor. He was a prominent member of the Irish Academy of Music (1848), secretary of the Dublin Madrigal Society, and the charitable Musical Fund Society. One of his students was Charles Villiers Stanford (editor of the George Petrie collection in the first decade of the 20th century), who said of him: [Levey] was a rough player, but an admirable leader of an orchestra...and often as a composer managed to make sows' ears resemble silk purses. He took the name 'Levey', his mother's maiden name, while a young violinist after a trip to London, where he received advice to discard O'Shauhnessy in favor of a more pronounceable one. As O'Neill remarked, he sacrificed pride to expediency.