History

The Irish Youth Choir (IYC) was established by Dr Geoffrey Spratt and Aiveen Kearney in Cork city in 1981 and gave its inaugural concert in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork on 2^nd July 1982. 

 
Over the past 27 years the IYC has provided an annual opportunity for over 1,000 young choral singers throughout Ireland to perform demanding and rewarding choral works to the highest possible standard, to sing together under the direction of professional conductors and tutors, and to increase their musical skills. Membership of the IYC is renewed on an annual basis through nationwide auditions and is open to those aged 18 to 28 years of age.

 
The choir has performed in all the large concert venues in major cities throughout Ireland (including Belfast, Cork, Derry, Dublin, Galway and Limerick), and has taken its concert programmes to churches as far apart as Cahersiveen, Cashel, Ennis, Kilkenny, Mullingar, Sligo, Tralee, Waterford and Wexford in an attempt to reach as wide an audience as possible. In 1997, and again in 2000, the choir performed in Wales as part of the Celtic Connections Festival.

 
The IYC has performed many of the large-scale works for choir and orchestra, including repertory pieces by Bach, Berlioz, Borodin, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorák, Fauré, Handel, Haydn, Hummel, Langlais, Mozart, Purcell, Stanford, and Tchaikovsky – many of them broadcast by RTÉ.  The choir has shown a consistent commitment to music by twentieth-century composers including music by Britten, Petr Eben, Duruflé, Fleischmann, Holst, Honegger, Kodály, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams and Victory.

On several occasions the choir has commissioned new works with the assistance of An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council.  Sèamas de Barra’s Canticum in laudibus was premièred in Cork (1989) and subsequently performed in Dublin (1990); Gerard Victory’s Everlasting Voices was premièred in Belfast in 1993 and subsequently performed in Derry.  Cavan-based composer Ciarán Tackney’s Gloria was performed in Cork, Tralee, and Wales during 1997.  The IYC is particularly delighted to have given the premières of two new works, specially commissioned for the 21^st Anniversary Concert: Sèamas de Barra’s Overture to a Masque: The Vision of Delight and Ciarán Tackney’s Jubilate Deo.  In 2005 IYC also commissioned a piece for mixed voice choir and piano by Marion Ingoldsby, Where Birds and Angels Dwell, paid for with funding from the Ireland/Newfoundland Partnership.

The IYC has worked with guest conductors John Alldis (1990) and Nicholas Kraemer (1986), and has collaborated with both the Fleischmann Choir (2000 & 2003) and the American River College Chamber Singers (1990), Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir, Waterford Larks, Waterford Boy Singers and the Fleischmann Choir.  The choir has sung with both of RTÉ’s orchestras on a number of occasions (National Symphony Orchestra: 1990 & 1992; RTÉ Concert Orchestra 1991, 1995 & 1996), with smaller groupings of members of the two orchestras (1983, 1986-1989, & 2004), and with the Irish Chamber Orchestra (1985 & 1986).  In recent years its performances with the Cork School of Music Symphony Orchestra (2000 & 2003) and Cork School of Music Baroque Ensemble (1997-1999) have been highly acclaimed.

 
The IYC first produced a CD in 1998 which featured Purcell My Heart is Inditing, Handel Concerto grosso Op 6, No. 4 and Dixit Dominus. The production of this CD was supported by Musgrave Ltd. The choir was accompanied by the Cork School of Music Baroque Ensemble. The IYC’s second CD, This is My Will, was devoted to the sacred choral music of the Cork based contemporary Spanish composer Angel Climent and was released in 2001 to much critical acclaim.  During the IYC’s rehearsals and concerts in 2003 sung in conjunction with the Fleischmann Choir (Orff’s Carmina Burana), Esras Films recorded material for a documentary entitled One Voice: The Irish Youth Choir which was broadcast on RTÉ 1 TV on 9th April 2004.

Administered by the Association of Irish Choirs (AOIC) and supported by An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council, the Irish Youth Choir is honoured to have the patronage of Her Excellency, Mary McAleese, President of Ireland.