Staying true to her voice
Lifestyle - Sharon Carty’s vocal talents were obvious from a young age but she initially opted for a career as a PE teacher. Then she changed course, moving first to Austria and then Germany to pursue her dream. The renowned mezzo-soprano who is taking part in the Galway Midwinter Festival tells Judy Murphy about following her true calling.
Sharon Carty is a firm believer in the importance of young people getting a rounded education – and she’s a textbook example of its benefits.
The former PE teacher who is now a world-recognised opera singer, is coming West from January 21-23, taking part in Music for Galway’s annual Midwinter Festival.
The last two years have been strange and, at times, difficult for the mezzo-soprano from Celbridge in Kildare whose job normally involves performing in concert halls and opera houses in Ireland and Europe.
“At the very beginning, I was the same as everyone else all over the world, thinking ‘they’re closing schools for two weeks’,” Sharon recalls of March 2020. “I was due to head off to Holland for a tour of St Matthew’s Passion that Easter and there was the slow realisation that this would be more than two weeks,” she adds with a rueful laugh. “It took me two months to get out of the hole I was in.”
However, she was lucky that, early in lockdown the Arts Council enlisted her for its pilot Creative Schools programme, working with students and teachers in the area of classical music.
“It was really lovely to feel you could put your skills to use in schools where they didn’t have live classes,” she says, referring to both her training in both teaching and singing.
As a former teacher, Sharon has sympathy for school staff who were pitched in at the deep end during the pandemic.
“You’d feel so sorry for teachers, having staff meetings on Zoom,” she remarks. And it’s not over yet.
At present, she’s not sure how her Midwinter Festival concerts in Galway will be presented. But all involved are determined the festival will happen. And Sharon is a woman who makes things happen, as her career path shows.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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