About Annette

Buncrana native, Annette McNelis, is a passionate creative music educator, composer, musician and keyboard tutor.

A dedicated environmentalist, Annette uses music to help raise awareness about the importance of nature and our role in protecting biodiversity. She has recorded two albums of her original instrumental music – The Long Shore and Inishowen.

Annette has spent the past 20 years creating educational resources for primary schools, including Environment the Musical, Biodiversity and Living on an Island The Environment the Musical classroom resource pack was featured on RTE Nationwide in 2015 and includes the Dog Pooh song, which has been used by county councils across Ireland.

She wrote the piece All Hands for Buncrana’s Scoil Íosagáin’s centenary celebrations, held in November 2024.

Annette has worked as an electronic keyboard tutor for Donegal ETB’s Music Education Partnership (DMEP) since 2006.  Currently she delivers weekly keyboard lessons for the DMEP in Crana College, Buncrana.

She is a TAP+ trained creative practitioner and has co-facilitated the TAP and TAP+ training programmes in 2023 and 2024, for the Donegal Education Support Centre

Annette has also worked as a BLAST Artist in Residence in several Donegal Schools. She was a contributor to the open access book, Sonic Histories of Occupation (Bloomsbury Publishing), launched in 2022.

As a volunteer for her local Tidy Towns Initiative, Annette delivers remote music workshops in local primary schools.

Annette’s Learning for Life was the winning theme tune in the Donegal ETB’s (VEC) Theme Tune Competition, held as part of its 2005 centenary celebrations.