So I’m down in the fair city of Cork lapping up some wonderful, diverse choral performances from choirs that have travelled from as far afield as Singapore and Japan and loving it.
I enjoyed the festival so much last year I decided to get stuck in and volunteer this year. If you can’t make it down to catch any of the live music you might like to keep track of things including results of the various national and international competitions via these channels:
Cork International Choral Festival page on Facebook
Here’s one of the most amazing performances I’ve seen so far – really looking forward to hearing them again later on this weekend. The University of Santo Tomas Singers from the Philippines:
Fancy an all expenses paid trip around 16 European countries in 20 days? Have a clue as to what social media is? Want to win some stuff? You should really take a look at the ‘Talk to EU Eurotrip’.
The Seafarer at The Abbey Theatre had me in stitches last night. Don Wycherley is outstanding and almost completely stole the show for me. This is the last week of it so do try and catch it if you can. Never seen a full house at the Abbey on a Monday so that says it all.
Book launched in NUI Galway by John Breslin, Alexandre Passant and Stefan Decker - ‘The Social and Semantic Web‘.
So we had dress rehearsals for Aida last night at the O2. To be honest, I’ve got mixed feelings going into tonight’s performance but I won’t go into that right now.
Here’s the O2 stage with both the male and female choirs giving it socks to the sweet orchestral accompaniment from below. The sound in there is fantastic.
Darragh & Ruairi (I think!) before going on stage:
If you’re going, well myself and Niamh will do our best to wave our lovely palm leaves at you from front left of the stage while trying to fall off and into the orchestra.
Oh and hopefully, you’re not too sensitive to the aroma of horse manure. I’ll leave you with that thought.
I just heard a rather moving interview on Newstalk between Tom Dunne, Jimmy Magee and Gráinne (forgive me, didn’t catch her surname) one of the founding members of Anam Cara. Jimmy lost his son to Motor Neuron Disease and has got involved with Anam Cara since his passing.
Anam Cara is a new organisation that offers support to parents who have lost a child.
It is a harsh and tragic fact that each year approximately 1,900 families in Ireland will lose a son or daughter (cite)
On November 2nd, Anam Cara will be releasing helium balloons as part of their ‘A Balloon to Remember‘ campaign in Tullamore, Co.Offaly. The aims of the campaign are:
You can help them out by sponsoring a balloon via the website, volunteer to help them or one of their satellite groups around the country or make a donation.
