Saturday 4 May | 8pm
St Brendan's Church of Ireland, Oxmantown Mall
€18/16*

** Part of Birr Festival of Music 2024 **

Dublin-based chamber choir Laetare Vocal Ensemble will present a varied selection of beautiful choral music from the Renaissance to the present day. The concert will include exciting new music by Laura Sheils, a talented and accomplished composer from Birr, who is a member of the choir.

Renowned for its diverse and innovative programmes and high-quality performances, Laetare brings a distinct sense of energy and fun to the concert setting.

Laetare Vocal Ensemble is a chamber choir based in Dublin, founded in 2014 by conductor Róisín Blunnie. The choir is active in concerts, festivals, collaborations, commissions and recordings. Competition successes include the ‘Ireland’s Choir of the Year’ award, Schuman-Europe award and Contemporary Music Centre Trophy at the Cork International Choral Festival, 2nd prize in the international category at the City of Derry International Choir Festival, and a Gold Diploma in the Grand Prix final of the Ave Verum International Choral Festival, Austria. The choir’s latest album is Ghost Songs: Contemporary Music and Words from Ireland (Divine Art Records), a 35-track collection of choral works by interspersed with readings by Paula Meehan, Dairena Ní Chinnéide, Marina Carr and Carl Corcoran, and harp improvisations by Síle Denvir. Aside from contemporary music, the choir focuses mainly on medieval, renaissance, nineteenth- and twentieth-century repertoire.

Conductor Dr Róisín Blunnie is Associate Professor of Music and Programme Chair of the M.A. in Choral Studies at Dublin City University. She is a native of Carrick on Shannon, Co Leitrim, and studied Choral Conducting at the Liszt Academy-Kodály Institute in Hungary before completing her PhD at Trinity College in Dublin. She was the DCU team lead for the recent EU-funded Erasmus+ project PRESTO, which created a suite of free digital learning resources for music (available at www.kodalyhub.com/presto), and together with orchestral conductor Dr Ciarán Crilly (UCD) she is the editor of the forthcoming book, Perspectives on Conducting, featuring chapters on diverse aspects of the art and craft of conducting by distinguished Irish and international contributors. Róisín received the Special Award to a conductor at the City of Derry International Choir Festival in 2017. She is an experienced choral festival adjudicator and workshop leader and presents at the annual Choral Leadership Days at the DCU All Hallows Campus in Drumcondra.