New Season 2008

Oh No

I have just wiped the whole bloody thing off.

Back to work. You can see how earnest and dedicated we are all looking at the start of the season

START AGAIN

Here we are back again for another year. Everyone seems to be full of enthusiasm and energy and really up for another great year. We have had some great times in the past few years and lets hope we can continue our winning ways. Of course winning isent everything as we knew back in the old days but now that we have started we hope to continue.

There is a great athmosphere around the choir. We have a lot of new members. We managed to capture a few new and very good basses ( welcome lads).

Our three new Basses, Donal McCarthy and Paddy Demery in front and Andrew McHugh in the row behind with Garry McCauley who is not a new member.

And this is a shot of the new faces in the Altos and Sopranos. At the back Miriam Finnegan is an Alto and Catherine Byrne has joined the Sopranos. In front Roisin Dawson and Antoinette Doyle are additions to the Alto Section. It is great to see a bit of new blood and we look forward to hearing your party pieces when we go touring.

You will notice we have a very strict policy of sexual segregation for new members. They are generally not allowed to mix until at least December.

We have a good programme for the year starting with a concert in aid of the Building Funds of our good friends in St Mary's and St Senan's. This is due in November and will feature the new Mick Hennessy Outfit. Anyone who was in the Golf Club a couple of years ago will remember the superb musicianship of his Tango Trio. Well, he's back with an expanded group to play some good jazz.

I think our most important project this year and one close to Donagh's heart is to perform in a Centenary Memorial Mass and a Concert featuring the music of Ernest De Regge. He was a Belgian Church Organist who came to Ireland in the 1920's and who spent most of his career as Choir Master in St Flannan's Cathedral in Ennis where Donagh came under his influence. He was a very well regarded musician by his fellow professionals and he composed a large amount of both Sacred and secular music. His wonderful music is only now becoming well known as it is edited and released by Donagh who has many of his manuscripts.

Our enthusiasm is largely caused by the fresh and lovely music which we are learning for this event. I think everyone is pleased with it and looking forward to singing it. We ahve a few other pieces by de Regge in our repertoir and while they can be difficult to learn at times they are worth the effort.

Finally a few pictures of the Choir hard at work