2017

Mid-May eNews 2020

Another week down, and we hope you’re all still doing ok as some of the restrictions begin to lift.  We’re working internally and with our colleagues in the music sector in Ireland as well as international colleagues in the choral music world to find ways to get back to work in line with government directives.  It may take some time to achieve that, but the safety of our artists, staff and audience is of paramount importance.

In the last few weeks, some of our singers have been delivering online workshops to choirs who were due to participate in Cork International Choral Festival.  We’ll share the results of that in a compilation video in the coming weeks.

Our singers have been sharing some videos about what they’re getting up to in lockdown – with a special musical treat from soprano, Charlotte, and alto, Laura last Friday to mark Monteverdi’s 453rd birthday!

We have two more lectures available on our YouTube channel (and below) delivered by Leo Samama and Raymond Gillespie.

All of us at Chamber Choir Ireland hope that you are all keeping safe and well in what continues to be a trying time.  We look forward to the lifting of restrictions being successful and continuing in the coming weeks and months and hope that our online offerings here and through our other social media channels are providing some light choral relief.  Have a great weekend!

Choral Music in Ireland: History & Evolution

In our last eNews, we shared the first in a series of YouTube podcasts of our Lecture series recorded in the Kevin Barry Recital Room at the National Concert Hall between 2017 – 2019.  This week we share our latest offering by Professor Raymond Gillespie of the History Department in Maynooth University sharing his insights into Music in Society 1540 – 1700 – and this involved some audience participation so not to be missed!  The series was presented in partnership with the Learning & Participation team at the National Concert Hall and funded by the Arts Council.   Also available on our YouTube channel is the lecture by Leo Samama about professional chamber choirs in the European context.

The lectures are not presented in chronological order, nor in the order in which they were originally presented.

Chamber Choir Ireland at home – what we’re getting up to!
Our singers are really missing performing together and for you so have been sending in some video messages for us to share with you.  Check our social media for some more updates from the other singers.

A radio broadcast

We know some of you thoroughly enjoyed listing to our last radio broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM and we’re delighted to have another concert broadcast directed by Paul Hillier. 

Recorded in January of this year, our opening programme of 2020, we performed works by three titans of 20th/21st century composition, Pärt, Lang, Andriessen, with ancient texts presented in a contemporary context and contemporary texts telling ancient stories.

Continuing our long association with Arvo Pärt in marking the composer’s 85th birthday year with a selection of his choral works including his deeply moving setting of The Deer’s Cry.

Moving to another close associate of CCI, David Lang, the upper voices of CCI performed a selection of songs from love, fail – a meditation on the timelessness of love that weaves together details from medieval retellings of the story of Tristan and Isolde with stories from more modern sources.

The programme closed with Louis Andriessen’s Flora Tristan. A multi-lingual text by the contemporary Dutch writer Fleur Bourgonje about the French/Peruvian social activist Flora Tristan, known for her defiance of conventional models of womanhood.

Morning Star—Arvo Pärt
The Deer’s Cry—Arvo Pärt
Dopo la vittoria—Arvo Pärt
love,fail (a selection)—David Lang
Flora Tristan—Louis Andriessen

The concert will be broadcast on Sunday 31 May at 9pm on Sound Out – RTÉ Lyric FM with Ian McGlynn