Song city: Cork choral festival opens

Many cities and towns show their best face to the world through the festivals or sports events they host each year.

Edinburgh does theatre, Montreux does jazz, Cheltenham does steeplechasers and bookies, Cannes uses its film festival to introduce a new crop of starlets to the world each year, while Wexford does opera.

One of the many festivals Cork city hosts — celebrates might be a better word — each year is the Choral Festival, which opens tonight. The festival was established in 1954 to bring some colour and wonderful singing from around the globe to the monochrome Ireland of the 1950s, so it is venerable among the jazz and the folk, the film and the food festivals spread across a busy year.