During the 1980s and 1990s Ethna Tinney had a busy career as a solo pianist. She performed concertos by Prokofiev, Beethoven, Ravel and Gershwin with the NSOI and by Beethoven, Mozart, Weber, Janácek, Constant Lambert and others with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Conductors she performed with included Albert Rosen, Bryden Thomson, Esa Pekka-Salonen, Colman Pearce, Proinnsías Ó Duinn and Eimear Ó Broin. She gave solo recitals all over Ireland and also recitals as part of the Duo Degani with Alan Smale, leader of the NSOI, and other musicians from both orchestras.
She joined the staff of RTÉ as a producer when lyric fm was established in Limerick in 1999. That put paid to piano performances until she left RTE and began to perform again, starting in May 2015. Since then she has performed many concerts both solo and with colleagues including Celia Donoghue, clarinet and Frank Schaefer, cello in Limerick, Dublin and Brighton.