Accomplished Offaly choir holds successful Summer concert

THOSE present at the summer concert, “Here Comes the Sun”, presented by Le Chéile Singers and friends at St Catherine’s Church, Hop Hill, Tullamore on Sunday, May 25, had a real treat, with a hugely varied and well received selection of classical, pop and traditional music.

The concert started with the choir singing FOUR songs, including a show tune, City of Stars from LaLaLand, Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, and a couple of traditional songs, Siúil A Rúin, which included a wonderful solo part by Patricia Dunne from the choir, and The Parting Glass.

The traditional group Trad Cúig then performed four pieces, including an amazing trad take on Pachelbel’s Canon, reminiscent of De Danann’s version of Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, all of which which were very well received by the audience.

The choir then dispersed to sing a setting of Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar from the side aisles of the church, with all the singers split up, not by voice parts but randomly, which resulted in an amazing surround sound effect for the audience.

After that, the lady singers performed the Baroque masterpiece Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater, accompanied by strings (four choir members showing off their musical talents - Elisabeth and Mary MacCartáin, Nicola McHugh and Adele O’Dwyer) and harpsichord.

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Then there was a procession of the male singers up the main aisle, while singing Media Vita, a plain chant song from the 10th Century. The ladies joined the men towards the end of the song. This was followed by Biebl’s Ave Maria, another plain chant song from the choir, this time in 7 part harmony with three choir members doing solo parts (Adele O’Dwyer, Orla Hannon and Gearoid McHugh).

Next, the audience was treated to a captivating performance by the soprano Helen Hancock of two well known operatic arias, Lascia Ch’io Pianga and O Mio Babbino Caro, and Thomas Moore’s Last Rose of Summer.

The climax of the concert was four uplifting rock songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, With or Without You, Wish You Were Here, Life on Mars and Here Comes the Sun, immediately followed by loud cheers and a standing ovation from the audience.

The choir was conducted with his usual panache by Andrius Kozlovskis. Charles Marshall on keyboards, Ciarán (Rocky) Whelan on guitar and Stephen McCormack on percussion helped to make this a memorable concert.

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Reactions from the audience were uniformly positive:

”It was a tremendous night…Honestly…Le Chéile is getting better andbetter all the time”.

“Congratulations. What a wonderful concert. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it”

“Just home from your wonderful concert! It was in a class all of its own! We thoroughly enjoyed it. Well done!”

“It felt like a little bit of heaven listening to the amazing choir and all the wonderful soloists, musicians and trad group”.

Helen Hancock, the soprano, said it was “a wonderful concert full of joyful music making”.

The choir’s next public performance will be on Hallowe’en night (Friday 31st October) in the Church of the Assumption Tullamore, a charity event in aid of Offaly Hospice, which will also feature the well known organist and violinist Bláithín Cotter, who will be playing one of Bach’s best loved organ works.