President's Address

It has been a privilege for me to be President of the Dublin County Choir for the past few years - and a source of great personal pleasure. Being present in the National Concert Hall for the Choir's performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah on a balmy night last May was one of the high points in my millennium year. As a child, part of the pleasure of Christmas for me was singing carols in the school choir - a pleasure that is now regularly revived for me at the Choir's annual Christmas concerts with the Billie Barry Children, the exuberant Niamh Murray and the talented young artists of the Royal Irish Academy of Music Brass and Wind Ensemble. My only regret is that I could not attend the Choir's other performances last year - two concerts of the Irish Ring in October, and the O'Riada Mass performed in Prague.

Last year's programme gives only a flavour of the Choir's impressive repertoire. It never fails to amaze me that the same 120 voices can perform the great classical works so movingly, opera choruses with such gusto, Christmas carols with such tenderness and modern compositions with such assured lyricism. But perhaps that is what is so magical about a choir - the alchemy produced by 120 individually beautiful voices, guided and shaped by Chorus Master, John Dexter, accompanied by Celine Kelly, under the inspired and energetic leadership of Conductor and Musical Director, Colin Block. Little wonder that the Choir manages to produce in each performance the kind of perfection which the American poet Robert Lowell has called a `sacramental instant'.

When Eamonn Kealy founded the Dublin County Choir 25 years ago, he wanted not just to give singers an opportunity to perform a wide range of choral music. He also wanted to create a special space where people of all ages, at all stages of the life cycle could sing together. He wanted to create a space to nurture young artists and composers.

At last year's Christmas concert, I watched the hundreds of people arriving at the National Concert Hall - parents, grandparents, young children. We were all coming from busy lives, fragmented by our own concerns. But as the performance began, everybody quieted and gradually, the music and the singing encircled us, united our attention, drew us all in. I watched the young performers, circled and anchored by the Choir. And I felt very honoured to be the President of the Choir.

Dr. Maureen Gaffney, B.A. (N.U.I), M.A. (UNIV. of CHICAGO, Ph.D.(T.C.D), A.F.P.S.I.