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A NATION’S VOICE ***NEW***

A Nation's Voice - Members of Donegal Youth Choir. Image Name: A Nation's Voice - Members of Donegal Youth Choir. Description: All photographs must be credited to the Arts Council Copyright: Pic - Clodagh Kilcoyne. All photographs must be credited to the Arts Council

Easter Sunday 2016

 

More than 1000 singers to join RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Brophy

for open-air free concert at Collins Barracks featuring

the world premiere of

One Hundred Years a Nation

by composer Shaun Davey and writer Paul Muldoon

 

On Easter Sunday, 27 March, at the National Museum Collins Barracks, months of preparation, planning and rehearsals all over the country will come to fruition with A Nation’s Voice, an open-air, free performance which will include the world première of One Hundred Years a Nation, a major new orchestral and choral work commissioned for the occasion by RTÉ from composer Shaun Davey with text by writer Paul Muldoon. Also on the programme, Seán Ó Riada’s Mise Éire Orchestral Suite, excerpts from The Connemara Suite by Bill Whelan, including the exhilarating An Chistín from the Connemara Suite, Whelan’s playful interaction between fiddle, feet and orchestra with soloists Helena Wood, violin, Zoë Conway, fiddle, and Colin Dunne, dance percussion, and a massed choirs performance of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah.

 

A Nation’s Voice will be presented by Miriam O’Callaghan and will be broadcast live at 2:30pm on RTÉ One, RTÉ Radio 1 Extra and on longwave.

 

More than 1000 voices from 31 choirs and 19 counties from Cork to Donegal will join with the full forces of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Brophy to perform One Hundred Years a Nation which will be narrated by Paul Muldoon.

 

Some of the choirs have formed especially for the occasion. The singers range in age from 9 to those of senior citizen age, and all participating choir directors have worked closely with conductor David Brophy in advance of their individual rehearsals at local level.

 

Speaking of his role as composer, Shaun Davey said: “It was both a responsibility and a challenge to compose the music for A Nation’s Voice,” “First, to provide a fitting setting for Paul’s evocative text, second, to write music for the choirs which is musically and vocally satisfying, and third to help find expression for a year in which the nation not only marks the past but also looks forward to the future, by including a song that contains wishes of hope for future generations.”

 

Writer Paul Muldoon said it was a privilege to be invited to write something for such a big public occasion, but also unnerving. “Our hope is that it’s a piece that will give people something to think about as they look back on the remarkable achievements of our first century and look forward to meeting the challenges presented by the next one. Most importantly, we wanted to give people a tune they can whistle as they get on with their day”.

 

The performance, lasting one hour approximately, is free to the general public. Tickets have been allocated by means of a public lottery.

 

A Nation’s Voice is presented by the Arts Council and RTÉ, in association with the National Museum of Ireland, the Association of Irish Choirs and Music Generation, as part of Ireland 2016.