I’ve played around with domains and blogs of various varieties for the past 12 months or so and finally settled on this one. CloudSteph, my Blogspot blog that I’ve been trickling random stuff into for some time now is a chapter closed. I’ve been turning over a new leaf lately and this is just another one of those things that has been sitting on the back burner awaiting attention.
I’ve met some wonderful people in the past few weeks that have collectively & individually given me a kick up the arse to sort myself out and start re-discovering the things I love that I’ve lost sight of in the past few years.
Something many people may not know about me is my love and appreciation of choral music. I’m not sure if it’s from growing up in Catholic rural Ireland or the family genes that gave me and many family members the gift of rhythm and vocal chords or both but I’ve always loved listening to groups of people singing for the love of singing. As a child I sang in the local church choir while it lasted and once it was found out I had a somewhat decent grasp of it, I was thrown into singing solo for everything from funerals to Sunday mass and everything in between. I alone took on the task of being the musical accompaniment to the Sunday mass for a while in my late teens when nobody else was bothered and the parish was adjusting to a new music-loving priest arriving on the scene and literally singing his way through mass. The singing continued in school with a weekly choir class and annual school musical. My first semester in DCU was a delight having wonderful guidance in the music society from David D’arcy who worked on campus with the National Chamber Choir. Sadly, David was unable to continue to lead us and nobody managed to take up the baton properly and it all fizzled away. I’ve been on the long waiting list for audition places for the beautiful and inspiring Gardiner Street Gospel Choir for about 6 months now so fingers crossed it might come to something. For now I’ll be trying to dust off the chords in the shower or when I’m in the car alone 
I hope to attend the Cork Choral Festival at the end of this month to soak up some performances from local and international groups. Tonight I was at our local church in my hometown of Ballyvaughan, Co.Clare where they’ve finally, after many many years of occasional gatherings, pulled together a choir of beautiful singers and wonderful potential. My iPhone is giving me major problems but I managed to record some tracks that I think is not a bad start for a group that only started singing together 2 weeks ago. Hope you enjoy.