Streets are alive with the sound of music
SPRING may have arrived late this year but the lengthening days make one thing certain. Cork International Choral Festival is fast approaching, and with it a blossoming of harmonious song around the city. With several new offshoots this year, especially to mark the year of The Gathering, the 2013 festival is set to be one of the biggest to date.
“There’ll be more than 5,000 participants,” says John Fitzpatrick, who has been festival director for the past 20 years. “We have attracted close to 1,000 singers from outside the country, which is a major increase on last year.”
International choirs are drawn to Cork both to compete in the prestigious Fleischmann International Trophy Competition and also as non-competing choirs to enjoy the festival’s offerings and performance opportunities.
“We have a competition of international standing and because we have so many entries, the competing choirs know they’ve achieved something just getting to Cork. The other strand is for choirs to come and just enjoy their time here and mix with other like-minded people.”
This year sees a new focus for the festival under the title Choral Gathering.
“Our gathering has two aspects,” Fitzpatrick explains. “The first is our Choral Gathering Trail with visiting choirs involved all over the city and suburbs in informal performances. The second part is the Choral Gathering Friendship concerts where we’ll be sending choirs into county areas over five days, from Lismore in Co Waterford to Allihies in West Cork. We’re also linking with West Cork Music in Bantry.”
The festival is honoured to be one of the flagship events of Fáilte Ireland’s national project. “All these concerts are to link up with communities. It’s a bit different to the main Gathering idea which is to bring the diaspora home. Our Choral Gathering follows on from what the festival has always done, which is to be a gathering of choirs and singers from different countries where they can meet each other and get a greater understanding of each others’ histories and music.”
It seems that the festival’s ability to do the Gathering on its own terms and still win major support may be due in part to its contribution to the tourism economy.
“The festival is very valued by the tourism sector in Cork,” Fitzpatrick says. “Of all the festivals in Cork city we’re the one who bring in the most visitors from abroad, many of them staying three or four nights. No other festival would compare with the number of bed nights we bring in.
“Many of the other festivals are well-attended but by a more local audience. And when you consider those visitors are also eating and drinking you see how much we enhance the economic life of the city.”
For national choirs, a significant change in the competition structure has been introduced this year.
The 2012 national competitions led to disappointment for some participants over the judges’ decision not to award a first prize in several categories, including an overall Premiere winner, due to the level of marks scored.
The result of the controversy is a new competition for the title of Ireland’s Choir of the Year, alongside the longstanding National Open competitions in seven categories.
“We had previous structures of national open competitions, and Premiere competitions in four different categories of mixed, chamber, female and male choirs. The highest marked choir in the Premiere competitions automatically went forward to perform at the Fleischmann Trophy competition the following year,” says Fitzpatrick.
The previous structure essentially led to a loss of the best choirs from the festival from year to year. “What happened was that the numbers entering the Premieres were falling because certain choirs who had won previously and therefore gone on to compete in the Fleischmann Trophy competition were disinclined to move back to a competition of perceived lesser standing. The structure had outlived its useful life.”
In establishing Ireland’s Choir of the Year, the festival set out to attract the country’s best choirs.
“We decided choirs should be allowed to enter even if they were entering the Fleischmann Trophy competition, as long as they did a different programme. The performances will be evaluated at a comparative standard to the Fleischmann so choirs can compare their marks across. It may raise their own sense of esteem and will give them a clearer view of how they stand.”
Despite the festival’s strong presence and continuing success, the organisation has not escaped the harsh effects of the recession. “Sponsorship used to amount to 25% of the budget and when the recession set in we were very affected,” Fitzpatrick reveals. “From a total budget of €200,000 the amount of annual sponsorship went from €52,500 in 2009 to €18,500 in two years. Over that time we increased ticket sales but we still have had to cut back on staffing and output in a myriad of areas to stay within our means. There’s a budget below which you can’t fall though, basic costs that you can’t cut back without damaging the standing and ethos of the festival.”
The festival remains mindful of its audience’s pocket too. Alongside the headline Gala concerts featuring professional ensembles, there are scores of great free performances. “One thing we’re very conscious of is to make choirs available to the Cork public at no cost. In total we have 122 performing groups coming this year, giving 111 performances in 63 different venues. We have something for everyone, from high-powered contemporary music to the singalong aspect.”
For Cork-born, London-based composer Solfa Carlile this is an exciting time. Two premieres of her work take place over the next few weeks. These performances come hot on the heels of the announcement of Carlile as the winner of the Seán Ó Riada composition competition as part of Cork International Choral Festival.
Carlile’s prize-winning work will receive its premiere by the National Chamber Choir as part of the festival on May 3. Before that, Cork Chamber Choir will premiere another a capella choral work as part of an all-Irish choral concert tomorrow in St Anne’s church Shandon.
Carlile won the Bill Whelan music bursary to study at the Royal College of Music in 2004, and last year became composer-in-residence for the Orchestra of St Paul’s in Covent Garden.
While the mainstay of her composition experience is instrumental, choral music holds a growing fascination for the young composer. “I did a workshop with the BBC Singers a couple of years ago, which was amazing, and I was inspired,” Carlile says. “It’s the words, that’s the thing. Because I can’t write the words myself, when I come across some poetry that is evocative, that’s the catalyst. I need the words to start with.”
On a Christmas visit home in 2011, Carlile was invited to a performance by Cork Chamber Choir. “I was invited to their annual Christmas performance in Tom Barry’s pub in 2011 and I went along for a glass of mulled wine and thought they were a lovely choir. So I thought I’d harass them by email,” she jokes.
“I decided I wanted to write a new choral piece and I hadn’t written anything in Irish. As a language, I think Irish lends itself nicely to singing, so I thought of Risteard Ua Chróinín, or Uncle Dick as I know him. He’s a gaeilgeoir and is very musical. He wrote the text very quickly and about half an hour after I’d asked him the full poem came back to me with an English translation!”
The poem, Is Mairg an Té gan Cheol, lent itself perfectly to her purpose. “It was very easy to work with as the metre was very consistent. The title means ‘pity the life without music’ and I found it very inspiring. I tried to be subtle with the word setting.”
Upon the Rose is the name of Carlile’s winning piece in the Seán Ó Riada composition competition. “I decided to enter with something uniquely Irish and rooted in the Irish idiom. I chose a poem by Joseph Mary Plunkett, the Irish nationalist poet. It has a religious context and says that the presence of God speaks through the rocks, the trees, everything. It inspired me to create a sound-world that I hope succeeds in conveying that.”
The work will receive its premiere by the National Chamber Choir under its director Paul Hillier during the choir’s annual gala concert at Cork International Choral Festival. As part of the prize, the work will also be discussed at the festival’s composition seminar the following day by experts including Hillier.
The opportunity is understandably a little nerve-wracking. “I’m excited and a little bit nervous about whether my ideas will translate. I hadn’t really realised about the concert being such a big thing but I’m excited and honoured,” says Carlile.
In praising the piece, the competition judges remarked that it “calls upon the performers to utilise interesting techniques in a framework that the judges all agreed is top-class choral writing”.
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