Another Cork International Choral Festival has come and gone and our fair city by the Lee is still reverberating with the echoes of heavenly harmonies from many lands. The festival was a resounding success as usual and Cork City Libraries was proud to be a part of the chorus with outstanding performances in our central and branch libraries.
We captured some of the action for your enjoyment. Here’s looking forward to 2016!
The Tallinn University Chamber Choir entertained the public at Bishopstown Library as part of their first visit to Ireland.
The Foerster Female Choir in the City Library.
The Foerster Female Chamber Choir (Czech Republic) was founded in Prague in 1975 and quickly came to be regarded as one of the Czech Republic’s leading choirs. Over the last few decades the choir has amassed a plethora of prizes, winning honours at festivals in Arezzo, Cork, Debrecen, Jihlava, and Prague, along with claiming outright victories at competitions in Klaipeda (2003), Vienna (2006), Venice (2008), and Rimini (2012). The choir pays special attention to contemporary music and has given many Czech composers their premier performance,though its repertoire is wide, ranging from Renaissance polyphony to music of the 20th century. Current director Jaroslav Brych studied conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Václav Neumann and now works as a pedagogue there, the Faculty of Pedagogics at Charles University, and the Conservatoire of Pardubice.
Komorni Zbor Hugo Wolf Choir at Cork City Library
Komorni Zbor Hugo Wolf (Slovenia) was founded in 2010, the 150th Anniversary of the birth of composer Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) as part of the Cultural Society of German-Speaking Women (Mostovi-Brücken). Keeping in spirit with the rich tradition of choral singing in Maribor, the choir incorporates a very broad range of styles, both old and contemporary, with no limits of genre or origin. The choir consists mostly of students of the choir’s artistic director, Aleš Marčič, a Master of Musical Arts. In 2011 the choir was awarded the golden diploma in category “Musica sacra” at “In… Canto sul Garda”in Italy. In 2014 they were invited to perform at Festival Maribor as part of the project “Stolen” with artistic director Richard Tognetti, director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
For more information on the Cork International Choral Festival and for a full report on the results of the competition, please visit the festival website.
Rory Gallagher Music Library 