The Irish Youth Choir (IYC) was established by Dr Geoffrey Spratt and Aiveen Kearney in Cork city and gave its inaugural concert in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork on 2 July 1982. It has since provided the opportunity for nearly 2,000 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. 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 and twenty-first-century composers including music by Barber, de Barra, Eben, Fleischmann, Holst, Honegger, Kodály, Orbán, Poulenc, Vaughan Williams, Whitacre and Victory.

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.

Notable events in the history of the Irish Youth Choir:

1982 Irish Youth Choir established

1986 guest conductor Nicholas Kraemer

1989 Sèamas de Barra’s Canticum in Laudibus premièred in Cork with the IYC

1990 The IYC worked with guest conductor John Alldis

1990 The American River College Chamber Singers collaboration

1993 Gerard Victory’s Everlasting Voices was premièred in Belfast with the IYC and subsequently performed in Derry. 

1997 Cavan-based composer Ciarán Tackney’s Gloria was performed in Cork, Tralee, and Wales.

1998 IYC first CD produced featuring Purcell My Heart is Inditing, Handel Concerto Grosso Op 6, No. 4 and Dixit Dominus accompanied by the Cork School of Music Baroque Ensemble

2000 IYC collaborated with the Fleischmann Choir

2001 IYC second CD, This is My Will, featuring Spanish composer Angel Climent released

2003 Documentary entitled One Voice recorded during the IYC rehearsals and concerts sung in conjunction with the Fleischmann Choir (Orff’s Carmina Burana)

2004 One Voice broadcast on RTÉ 1 TV on 9th April

2005 IYC 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.

2011 The Irish Youth Chamber Choir was established for exceptional singers from within the ranks of IYC. The chamber choir gave its first performance with singer/composer Julie Feeney (herself a former IYC member) at the Ark in Dublin.

2012 IYC 30^th Anniversary: new work by Jonathan Nangle, commissioned with support from the Arts Council

2013 The IYCC performed at the BBC proms with the National Youth Choir and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

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 His Excellency, Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland.