May Bank Holiday means... the Cork International Choral Festival!

The bar of the Kingsley Hotel in Cork buzzed with tension and excitement on Friday 1st May while members of the choir gathered to prepare for the Cork International Choral Festival.  There were some surprised glances from other patrons as the chat quickly turned to song when groups of singers huddled in corners to hum their lines together.

While the choir had returned from Arklow festival in 2014, and Kilkenny festival in 2013 clutching silverware, we all recognized that Cork was a step into the big leagues!  Nás na Rí singers were making their return to the City Hall in Cork after an absence of nearly thirty years and the excitement was palpable.

An early and abstemious night was the order handed down from our esteemed musical director, Áine Mulvey, and of course, we all obeyed (well, that’s the story) and we presented ourselves early on Saturday morning in the class for mixed voices performing against seven other wonderful choirs.  Our performances of Monteverdi’s Cantate Domino and  Morten Lauridsen’s Sure on this this Shining Night were well received by the audience and highly complimented by the judges, who awarded us a very creditable score of 83 marks.

Buoyed up by our great performance, we split up for the afternoon to enjoy the smorgasbord of music available all over the city.  Cork was awash with music and with singers wetting their whistles.  Regrouping that evening, the choir dinner in the hotel was rounded off, as always, with a sing-song featuring songs in English, Irish, Armenian and Dutch as individual members strutted their stuff!


We didn’t think we could top Saturday’s excellent performance, but we pulled out all the stops for the light jazz and popular class on Sunday afternoon, and raised the roof withHomeward bound by Marta Keen. Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Amigos para Siempre ended our trip to Cork on a wave of excitement and joy.  The judges singled out our soloist, Hugh Gallagher, for special praise and our score was a whopping 87.5 marks.

A huge vote of thanks to the MD, Chairperson and committee and to Annalisa who accompanied us so well and helped us exceed our wildest expectations.

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