{"id":15108,"date":"2017-09-25T11:17:59","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T10:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=15108"},"modified":"2017-09-25T11:17:59","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T10:17:59","slug":"jam-packed-schedule-of-events-planned-for-5th-city-of-derry-international-choir-festival-25-29-october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2017\/09\/jam-packed-schedule-of-events-planned-for-5th-city-of-derry-international-choir-festival-25-29-october\/","title":{"rendered":"Jam-packed schedule of events planned for 5th\u00a0City of Derry International Choir Festival, 25-29 October"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The City of Derry International Choir Festival has launched the full programme of events for its fifth edition, due to take place from 25-29 October.<\/h1>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15109\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15109\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-15109\" src=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/press2-28-1024x698.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"341\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15109\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">City of Derry International Choir Festival Launch<br \/> The Mayor of Derry, Councillor Maoliosa McHugh, Donal Doherty, Artistic Director of the Festival, and Derry-born singer Laura Sheerin who performed at the launch of the 5th City of Derry International Choir Festival in St Columb&#8217;s Hall.<br \/> Mandatory Credit \u00a9Lorcan Doherty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The city will welcome over 50 choirs to take part in concerts, competitions, workshops and community performances across the 5-day festival, with singers traveling from Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and throughout Ireland and the UK to take part in the jam-packed schedule of events.<\/p>\n<p>Music lovers will be treated to concerts by award-winning choir and one of the world\u2019s leading vocal ensembles, Tenebrae, Swedish a cappella quintet The Real Group and the young \u201catmosfolk\u201d duo Saint Sister, currently taking the Irish and international music scene by storm with their\u00a0mix of vocal harmonies, synth and electro-acoustic harp.<\/p>\n<p>The festival will feature an evening gala concert with the newly-formed 2017 Festival Chorus, a choir made up of more than 100 singers from many of the local choirs in the city and conducted by Artistic Director of the festival, D\u00f3nal Doherty. This brand new ensemble will give a performance of the hugely popular Rutter Gloria and will be joined by award-winning local chamber choir Codetta and the Ulster University Chamber Choir, accompanied by renowned organist Catherine Ennis, in the stunning surroundings of the Guildhall.<\/p>\n<p>Participating choirs will compete in more than 10 categories of competition throughout the festival, including school, equal voice, mixed voice, youth choir, popular, jazz, gospel and sacred music and the highlight of the festival will see seven international competitors battle it out to win the prestigious \u2018Oak Tree of Derry\u2019 trophy and a cash prize of \u00a32,000 in the International Competition.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to its impressive evening concert series, the festival will host a number of pop-up performances on its Choral Trail in venues including Foyleside Shopping Centre, The Craft Village, City Hotel, Ollie\u2019s of Ebrington, the Railway Station, Foyle Hospice, Altnagelvin Hospital, Ardnashee School and more on Friday 27, Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 October. A number of churches will also host visiting choirs for Sunday service on the morning of Sunday 29 October in the festival\u2019s Sacred Trail.<\/p>\n<p>An exciting new development as part of the fifth edition of the festival will see the launch of a series of conducting masterclasses in partnership with the Ulster University School of Creative Arts and Technologies. Each session will be led by a member of the festival\u2019s international panel of adjudicators with the Chamber Choir of the Ulster University as the resident choir. Sessions will include discussion on choral training, conducting technique, score preparation, repertoire selection and choir management. Applications are now open for participants via <a href=\"http:\/\/derrychoirfest.com\">derrychoirfest.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As well as conducting masterclasses, the festival will host 3 Big Sing workshops in St. Columb\u2019s Hall for primary schools, post-primary schools and an open session for all (Saturday 28 October). These entertaining and fun workshops explore the building blocks\u00a0of successful choral singing and are led by inspiring performers from the festival programme.<\/p>\n<p>Fiona Crosbie, Festival Manager, says, \u201cWe are very excited to be announcing such a fantastic programme of events for this year\u2019s festival. We have a brilliant line-up of participating choirs who will feature in venues across the city from 25 \u2013 29 October so there\u2019s a chance for everyone to experience the music-making on offer and join in the celebration of singing!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tickets are now on sale for all festival events and can be purchased at the Millennium Forum. For all festival details please visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.derrychoirfest.com\/\">www.derrychoirfest.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The City of Derry International Choir Festival has launched the full programme of events for its fifth edition, due to take place from 25-29 October. The city will welcome over 50 choirs to take part in concerts, competitions, workshops and community performances across the 5-day festival, with singers traveling from Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2017\/09\/jam-packed-schedule-of-events-planned-for-5th-city-of-derry-international-choir-festival-25-29-october\/\">Continued<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15110,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15108\/revisions\/15110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}