“Birds do sing, Hey ding-a-ding-ding….” Composers like birds!

This summer, the Irish Youth Choir conducted by Bernie Sherlock will present an incredible programme of wonderful pieces, each one featuring birds - either tucked away in the background or strutting centre-stage.

Whether pieces are from the 1400s or 2021, or by Panufnik or Brahms, there’s a bird in there, somewhere. They appear in music that profoundly celebrates the whole wide world of nature. Sometimes they just sit above, wry observers of the canoodling behaviour of human lovers, and at other times they are feathered symbols of freedom or longing. And sometimes they are simply themselves, the stars in beautiful music that’s all about them.

It will be challenging and great fun to perform this amazing programme which includes four pieces never before performed in Ireland, two of them never performed before anywhere!

Irish premiere: Roxanna Panufnik Celestial Bird
Jacob Archadelt Il bianco e dolce cigno
Caroline Shaw And the Swallow
Brahms O schöne Nacht
Irish premiere: Jake Runestad Why the Caged Bird Sings
Arr. Robert Sund Alouette
Michael McGlynn Eirí na Gréine
Rutter Sing a Song of Sixpence
Monteverdi Quel augellin che canta
World premiere: Arr. Eoin Conway *Sweet Lemany
Seán Doherty Under-Song
World premiere: Seán Doherty *The Peace You Hold
Stanford The Blue Bird
*Commissioned by the Irish Youth Choir 2021