Colin Block Musical Director

In 1979 I was a horn player in the RTE Symphony Orchestra, and as a sideline, I used to conduct a couple of small choirs who mainly sang in competitions. In that year two things happened to me, one negative, one positive, which were to radically change my life. The negative was the first appearance of the back complaint which was to have such a severe impact on my life. But the oh-so-positive one was being asked to conduct the Dublin County Choir.

At that time it was mainly a competition choir, and I had been highly impressed whenever it appeared under Eamonn Kealy in the same competitions as my own choirs. I was impressed both with its high standard, and with its size - around the 90 mark as I remember - about three times the size of most other choirs in the competitions.

Imagine my dismay then to find when I took up my new post in September 1979 that membership was down to 36! Undaunted, we quickly got some recruiting flyers done, and miraculously got the membership back up to 90 or so in the space of a few weks.

During these early days Winnie Ryan was the choir's organiser and she and I were the most benevolent of dictators, mainly because the attitude amongst the members was that Winnie and I seemed to be doing a grand job, so why go spoiling it with a committee, or any nonsense of that kind. However, I was determined that the choir would have democracy whether it wanted it or not! Both the financial responsibility, and the sheer organisational workload would soon be too much for two individuals to shoulder on their own. People were "volunteered" for a committee, and Tony Sutton became the first of many distinguished chairmen of the Dublin County Choir. 

I could see that the performing potential of the choir was enormous, and I felt that the competition circuit was a bit limiting, especially because we never got a chance to do any of the wonderful large scale masses and requiems by the great composers. So I put it to the choir that we could continue to have a perfectly nice time doing small scale music for competitions, or we could raise the stakes, and work towards becoming a major performer in the concert arena- a lot of very hard work for everyone, but with the hugely increased satisfaction of a difficult job well done. Characteristically, the choir accepted the challenge with enthusiasm. The system of learning tapes was introduced, and we gave ourselves 18 months to learn the music, and the necessary singing techniques to become a major concert choir.

We sprang ourselves on an unsuspecting public with a terrific performance of Carmina Burana in Trinity College Examination Hall on 14th March 1981, accompanied by piano and percussion. To ease the learning burden we included in the first half some of our competition favourites - "Love is Blue", "The Windmills of Your Mind", the Seiber Yugoslav Folk Songs, Bruckner's Locus Iste etc. The audience and critics were highly appreciative, and we revelled in the euphoria of concert success.

We consolidated our Trinity success, and hugely expanded our repertoire with a concert of sacred music with organ accompaniment in Dun Laoghaire later that year on 1st December 1981. The concert included substantial pieces by Parry, Britten, Brahms, Handel, Mozart, Victoria and Berlioz. That programme looks very ambitious to me even now, and had no repeat items from previous concerts and competitions, so everyone seems to have thoroughly got the hang of learning from tapes. My aim was to give the choir a taste of as many different kinds of music as possible, from the 16th century, right through to the 20th century.

On 13th November 1982 we took the final step needed to become a major choir- our first concert in the National Concert Hall, with professional soloists, and professional orchestra- the first of many. Again we were ambitious- we commissioned a contemporary unaccompanied work from John Kinsella (Jubilate Deo), and in the second half we performed the Beethoven Mass in C with soloists and orchestra. Again, we were well received by audience and critics alike.

The rest, as they say, is history, a history which has been ably documented by our archivist, Liam Flynn. The variety of repertoire, the frequency of concerts, and the number of different people (including R.T.E.) who have"borrowed" the choir over the years make interesting reading.

The choir can be very proud of the position it has established for itself over the last 25 years as a major Dublin choir with an unusual degree of versatility- how many other choirs would (or even could) perform Beatles, Brahms' Requiem, ABBA and Elijah in 4 successive concerts? The Dublin County Choir can rock and swing, as well as put on a serious face. But what always impresses me most of all is the professionalism, and musicality present in a membership where the majority cannot sight sing. Also, on those few nerve-racking occasions when we've had difficulty being ready for a performance, the Dublin County Choir always comes up with the goods, and the concert euphoria we first felt in Trinity College all those years ago never seems to fade. Needless to say, I am mighty proud of everything that we have achieved together.

But, on a more personal note, pride and satisfaction have not been the only benefits to me of conducting the Dublin County Choir. Choral directing has helped me to rise above the difficulties that the proverbial "bad back" brings- pain can't get such a grip on your mind when it is already fully preoccupied with great music. Also theadrenalin from performing is about the best pain killer you could ever hope to find. So here's to another 25 years of good companionship, great music making, and (for me) wonderful therapy.

Colin.