Raising our voices with the Dublin Male Voice Choir

Saturday 6th June found us bursting with energy at the Civic Offices in the Devoy Quarter in Naas.  Dressed in our best, we primped and preened in front of the lens of one of our newest sopranos, the talented Ana Dorado of abdphotography.com.  She snapped away as we relaxed, then took some more formal shots, some of which will appear in the artwork of our beautiful CD,Rejoice and be Merry, in aid of the Friends of Naas Hospital which we’ll release in November 2015.  Many thanks to Ana.

Then it was onto a coach and we were swept into Dublin, to meet our charming hosts, the Dublin Male Voice Choir at St Anne’s Church on Dawson St.  The men took up their places on the altar, while the women perched in two vertiginous choir balconies above them, and brave Áine Mulvey, MD, mounted a tiny raised platform from which she could just about survey her spread out troops.  The unorthodox positioning of the combined choirs worked brilliantly, adding a particularly beautiful, eerie quality to Tundra by Ola Gjielo — a complex, nine-voice arrangement for ladies’ voices — as it floated down from above.

Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody was the centerpiece of this hugely successful concert, with the combined vocal power of the Dublin Male Voice Choir and the men’s chorus of Nás na Rí Singers providing beautiful support to mezzo-soprano Norah King.

We were thrilled with the opportunity to perform with this warm, welcoming, award-winning men’s choir and we enjoyed their repertoire thoroughly.  Many thanks to our accompanist, Annalisa Monticelli, to Charles Marshall, DMVC accompanist, and to Áine Mulvey, who directs both choirs, and who was the driving force behind the collaboration.