Show goes on for NUIG Alumni Ensemble

The group had planned on giving a number of choral concerts and taking part in music festivals around Ireland this year. But those plans have gone by the wayside, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the members didn’t want to stop singing, so they began creating a series of virtual choir videos where people sing from their own homes. Their first video, Red Cortina, was a cover of the Saw Doctors song which gained tens of thousands of views on social media.

This current video is a version of Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. The soloist is Carla Merrigan who lives in Galway City and brings viewers on a walk around her home in and around Claddagh, against a backdrop of glorious sunshine.

The remainder of the choir created videos from their homes or surrounding areas, showing the effects of the lockdown on their lives.

Revisiting music from their time as undergraduates, the group sing an arrangement created by Joseph Bates dating from 2007 and it’s complemented by some excellent beat-boxing by Micheál Colman.

This performance is dedicated to the late Mary McPartlan, a lecturer in NUIG and a renowned singer who had the NUIG Alumni Ensemble sing on her album Petticoat Loose.

The virtual choir allows singers to perform together during lockdown but it also offers a way to reconnect with other singers who have moved on or moved country. That’s according to Peter Mannion who directs the Ensemble and who recently graduated from NUIG with an MA in Music in Irish Studies.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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