Award winning Armagh pianist Cahal Masterson has a broad musical career encompassing performance, recording, education and artistic research. He has given numerous performances nationally and internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and vocal repetiteur, with repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary styles. As a recording artist Cahal has self-released and collaborated on numerous albums receiving critical acclaim and wide radio broadcast. Cahal is currently a PhD student at Dublin City University where his research looks at how mindfulness and musical practice can interact from the practitioner's perspective. Alongside ongoing recitals and artistic research Cahal is dedicated to championing exciting new works by Irish composers. He has frequently collaborated on the premiere of new commissions, including solo piano works, chamber pieces, song cycles, opera and ballet by composers such as Anselm McDonnell, David Quigley, Aine Mallon, Stephen Gardner, Amelia Clarkson and others.  Other core contemporary work in his repertory includes music by Jonathan Nangle, Ian Wilson, Deirdre Gribbin and Philip Hammond. Recent performances have included the National Concert Hall Dublin, Tuscany Italy, and the Imagine Festival in Belfast. Upcoming major artistic projects include "Stillness and Structure" for solo piano, focusing on Bach's Goldberg Variations. Cahal will give a tour of four performances throughout Ireland of this special programme in early 2027 taking him to Fermanagh, Armagh, Sligo & Cork.

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Key previous projects have included the design of Children's Corner, a comprehensive programme geared towards the upper-primary level in conjunction with Music for Galway. This piloted in 2021 culminating in a combined performance of iconic childhood themed music inter-twinned with kids’ responses to music via art and poetry in the Galway area.  Other notable performances have included with soprano Rebecca Murphy at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris 2023, and projects delivered with Trio Cantare at Drogheda Classical Music, Belfast International Arts Festival, Music for Wexford and Monteverdi Tuscanny in Italy. Cahal co-founded this brilliant chamber group with Irish mezzo-soprano Gemma Ni Bhriain in 2021. In April 2024 Cahal gave the world premiere of The Brahmdel Variations for solo piano by CMC composer Stephen Gardner at Rosemary Street First Church, a work he gave repeat performances of for Music in Fermanagh in November 2025. More recent album collaborations have included Kraina by McDonnell and Traverser by soprano Rebecca Murphy. 

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In 2018 Cahal recorded his inaugural album Transition at Sono Luminus Studios in Boyce, Virginia, releasing this debut record with a series of performances in Washington D.C, and Toronto, Canada. Upon completion of four years postgraduate study in North America he returned to Europe to concertise again for home audiences giving recitals throughout Ireland and the UK. Autumn 2019 was Cahal's first opportunity to get involved in education outreach programmes and he gave piano workshops alongside performances for secondary school music students throughout Northern Ireland. A 2021 performance in Belfast International Arts Festival and a home-coming concert tour in 2019 both received mention as feature articles in the Belfast Telegraph, and in 2020 Cahal was awarded an Emerging Artist Platform with Moving on Music.

Cahal graduated with a Masters in Music Performance from Shenandoah University, USA in May 2019, and prior to this completed an Artist Diploma at The Glenn Gould School in Toronto, Canada. He sat his Bachelor degree in Music Performance at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin. His main teacher and mentor over the course of his study was Dr. John O’Conor. Throughout his studies he received numerous scholarships and awards. During his time at Shenandoah University USA he was awarded the E Evans Scholarship for exceptional artistic talent, at the Royal Irish Academy of Music he was a recipient of the prestigious Lucien and Maura Tessier Scholarship, and at the Glenn Gould School received The Harmony Arietta Chiu Scholarship, The Nicholas Weldon Kilburn Memorial Scholarship and The Adele Crone Memorial Scholarship. He is a previous multiple prize-winner in Dublin’s Feis Ceoil and a former recipient of the Morris Grant Bursary. Cahal has worked with many of the world’s leading pianists including Pascal Rogé, Jaques Rouvier, Arnulf von Arnim, Pavel Nersessian, John Perry, Ronan O’Hora, Anton Nell, Jonathan Biss, Joanna MacGregor,  Leon McCawley, and Christopher Elton.

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