Listen to members of the College Choir sing For the Beauty of the Earth by John Rutter.
'Here in the Music department, we knew that this academic year would be difficult. COVID restrictions meant that Ms Dunne and I had to think quickly, if we were to have any chance of having practical music-making in the school at all this year.
And so we did! We trialed a variety of socially-distanced musical activities in the College, from Zoom rehearsals, singing / playing with masks, outdoor rehearsals (not fun in December), and virtual concerts and Masses. The one thing we hadn’t tried before now, was a virtual choir video. Naively, I decided to dip my toe into that particular sea, in the hopes of learning a new skill.
I picked the brains of various 5th years; Henry Li, Nick O’Neill, and Stan O’Beirne; after understanding about 75% of the jargon, I took myself off to set things up, with click tracks and PDFs. Henry and Nick were willing research assistants, generously lending their talents to creating the rehearsal tracks for the choir, and recording the prototype for the video, largely without complaint.
The project was open to all members of the College Choir, and these videos are the culmination of a LOT of hard work from the students who participated, in learning their lines and recording their videos. At this point, I would like to give a shout-out to their families, who, no doubt, could all sing the piece by now!
Special thanks to Henry and Nick, whose expertise and advice (with only a few sceptical looks) was invaluable. Many thanks also, to the following students (and teacher) for contributing their vocal talents to the video and to Stan, for the wonderful accompaniment – I hope all enjoyed taking part and will have fond memories of the experience in years to come.'
Ms Rosemary O'Brien
Vocals by: Cormac Carney 3D, Dr Michael Clark (Class of '99), Rohan Devereux 5C, Michael Foley 4C, Darragh Geraghty 5C, Ruben Grace 5C, Cormac Hannon 3D, Kevin Hegarty 6B, Sonny Lalor 4A, Henry Li 5D, Oisín Murray 4C, Stan O’Beirne 5C, Liam Ó Laoide 5D and Nick O’Neill 5D.
Thanks to Oxford, publishers of For the Beauty of the Earth by John Rutter, for permission to use the piece.