About the Choir
The Mornington Singers is an award-winning mixed-voice chamber choir based in Dublin (Ireland) and conducted by Orla Flanagan.
The choir was established in 1997 by friends who wished to continue singing together after graduation from college. Today the choir has around thirty-five singers from a wide variety of backgrounds and nationalities, including Ireland, England, Wales, Estonia, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States.
Awarded first prize in the National Competitions for Chamber Choirs and Mixed Voice Choirs at Cork Choral Festival in 2004 and 2005 respectively, and third prize in the Fleischmann International Competition in 2008, the Mornington Singers has established itself as one of Ireland's leading choirs.
We perform regularly throughout the year in numerous venues in Ireland and abroad. We explore a wide variety of musical styles, and our repertoire ranges from large-scale oratoria pieces to contemporary chamber works, with acclaimed presentations of both sacred and secular choral music.
The choir is strongly committed to the development and popularisation of choral music. To this end we regularly
- Perform contemporary works
- Work with emerging composers and arrangers, including choir members
- Commission and premiere new compositions
- Perform outside Dublin and abroad
- Present Irish choral music workshops abroad for conductors and singers
The choir endeavours to provide a platform for up-and-coming musicians, commissioning and performing works by young Irish composers; choir members have also gone on to become professional singers and conductors. We have performed with celebrated professional musicians in Ireland and with some of the finest orchestral and choral ensembles in Ireland, the UK and Italy. In August 2000 the choir was invited to perform at the prestigious Three Choirs Festival in Hereford, England.
In 2005 we collaborated with the Torino Vocalensemble, sharing with them the opening concert of the Turin Sacred Music Festival in March and performing twice with the choir in Dublin in May of that year. The Mornington Singers celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2007 with a number of projects, including a tour to St. John's, Newfoundland as part of the Festival 500 choral event.
Press
Press coverage include comments such as
- "Excellent" - Gloria, Lyric FM
- "Versatile" - The Ticket, The Irish Times
- "Stunning voices" - The News Letter (Belfast)
- "Outstanding performance" - Classic Drive, Lyric FM
- "A force to be reckoned with" - Rathcol, Belfast Telegraph
- "Some of the sweetest sounds you'll have heard" - Morning Ireland
- "Beautifully spun ... crisply articulated" - The Journal of Music (in Ireland)
Testimonials
- "Beautiful choir" - Andrea Bocelli
- "Capturing from the first moment" - Péter Erdei
- "Warm ... impressive ... colourful" - Mervyn Cousins
- "Wonderful phrasing ... superbly controlled" - Jean-Claude Wilkens
- "Vibrant and confident ... An excellent performance" - Blánaid Murphy
- "Tight and well balanced sound, pure and delicate" - Tone Bianca Dahl
Trivia
Originally founded as the graduate choir of Trinity College Dublin, the choir takes its name from the first Professor of Music there, Garret Wellesley, first Earl of Mornington
Despite confused emails to the contrary, the choir is not based in Dublin, Ohio or Mornington, Co. Meath. The choir has yet to visit the Mornington Peninsula in Australia, and their broadcast credits do not include BBC Radio 4's infamous Mornington Crescent segment.
Like the choir, the latter two take their name (directly or indirectly) from the eponymous Earl's family seat in Meath. A composer and musician, Wellesley (aka Wesley) is better remembered today as the father of a number of famous politicians. These include the first Duke of Wellington, reputed to have said of his birth in Ireland that "being born in a stable does not make one a horse"!
