Irish Doctors Choir Update…. – Irish Doctors Choir

So as a glorious Mahlerian E Flat Chord still hangs in the air over the Ulster Hall, we are now fully back to work..and to a lot of Christmas Music. It has been good to see all that is going on across the country and beyond via our Facebook Page

From the Choir Secretary…

Back in the Irish Doctors Choir Committee things are also going full speed ahead. We will shortly launch our vital Crowdfunder Campaign and we will need all our members and supporters to keep the campaign information and shares flowing for the entire month that it lasts. If you care about IDC, please help. It’s decision time for us as a choir, if we cannot raise sufficient funds everything goes on hold. As a pay-as-you-go choir, members are not required to pay an annual subscription but we do absolutely need a start-up donation from every member. Please be generous with this. Getting your family and friends to share what you have shared multiplies the power of our campaign greatly but only if everyone participates.

Tickets for choir members to take part in our exciting Rachmaninov Weekend ( Friday 13-Sat 14 April 2018) are ready to go on sale. We will be sending out an email to all our members: Mahler Chorus, Waiting List, New Members, all treated on the same footing. We number around 150 and are set to grow. This is first-come-first-served so don’t delay if you want to do it! The setting is the lovely An Grianán in Termonfeckin, near Drogheda. It’s the HQ of the Irish Country Womans’ Association and it offers warm hospitality, load and loads of great food, lovely grounds leading to the beach for your early morning swim and a cosy private bar for residents. Its relatively easy to get to from most places; if the ICA can manage it so can we?

The Rachmaninov All Night Vigil is a searingly beautiful piece, steeped in the dark beauty of the Russian Orthodox Tradition. It is sung a cappella and the rich choral sound rests on a rich Bass 2 line ( keep frying guys!). Our Musical Director, Brian MacKay has chosen this for us and I know he plans a special event, not a regular concert, so expect atmosphere as well as fine music.

The choir already sang one of the eight movements, Bogoroditse Dyevo, at a workshop this year and it was a powerful piece to sing together.

Here is a clip to remind you how lovely this is ( not Irish Doctor Choir, sorry!!)

..and here is an online pronunciation guide to remind you to get started soon! 😂😂

Large events take months and months of planning. The IDC committee WhatsApp group is on fire this week with ideas for 23-25 November 2018 and we hope to tell you all more soon when things become more definite. Brian apparently has a five -year plan and we think he plans to share it with us all. I don’t know what it is yet but i know that glorious renaissance music, more exciting repertoire from the 20th Century and, of course, the one-and-only Johann Sebastian Bach are all in his mind.

Meanwhile in the thrilling world of administration, things are busy as well. If things work out, you should be getting most of our emails via Mailchimp from now on. We hope this will prevent loss to spam filters but do remember to check your spam and move us to your safe senders list or you may lose vital information. Please email the choir if there are any problems with all this. If your contact details change, let us know.

We have had so much pleasure with this choir already. Lets protect a little oasis of time twice a year to share in the joy of singing together at this level and beyond.

Olivia

December 2017

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