Auditions for the Irish Youth Choir Summer Course 2021 are taking place on 27th March and 17th April.

The Irish Youth Choir and conductor Bernie Sherlock are celebrating a fresh start in 2021. Starting in March, an exciting Spring Series will lead up to the IYC's annual flagship event: this year's summer course, 13th - 22nd August 2021, in the beautiful surroundings of the University of Limerick.

What will it be like at the IYC summer course? A dream for anyone who loves choral singing. For nine days, you will be immersed in simply wonderful music. You'll be part of a group of young, enthusiastic and talented singers who will be taught and trained and conducted every day by the IYC's new, internationally-acclaimed conductor and artistic director, Bernie Sherlock.

To complement her work with the choir, Bernie has assembled a team of brilliant vocal tutors to work separately with each of the SATB lines: Aisling Kenny, Christina Whyte, Alan Leech, and Brian Dungan.

The IYC summer course also offers individual singing lessons, skills-based workshops, and a variety of other activities which taken all together will create an exceptional musical and social experience.

During the course you and the group will become a choir, Ireland's national youth choir, ready to perform in this year's Irish Youth Choir summer concerts in Limerick, and Dublin at the end of the course.

Musical Programme:

Singers will be challenged, delighted and rewarded by the music on this year's course. The programme will introduce specially commissioned new works from Ireland's Seán Doherty – whose intensely atmospheric Under-Song is also included – and Eoin Conway which will receive their world premieres in the closing concerts.

At the heart of Bernie's programme is Cloudburst, American composer Eric Whitacre's exciting and highly personal response to a rare, first-hand experience of the desert. Responses to nature and landscape continue in I Share Creation by Bob Chilcott (England), Voice on the Wind by Sarah Quartel (Canada), and in pieces by Marcos Leite (Brazil), Claudio Monteverdi (Italy), Jim Clements (England), and Craig Hella Johnson and Rosephanye Powell (USA).

Cloudburst Eric Whitacre
With a Lily in Your Hand Eric Whitacre
I Share Creation Bob Chilcott
Ecco mormorar l’onde Monteverdi
Let the rivers run (arr.) Craig Hella Johnson
Tres cantos Nativos (arr.) Marcos Leite
Under-song Seán Doherty
New Commission Seán Doherty
New Commission Eoin Conway
Voice on the Wind Sarah Quartel
Sorida Rosephanye Powell
Underneath the Stars (arr.) Jim Clements

Concerts:

St Mary’s Cathedral Limerick - 21st August
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin - 22nd August

For more details on the course and how to audition online, please visit the link below.