Choral Music in Trinity?

nicola09

I'm just wondering if anyone on here is involved with choirs in TCD? From reading the prospectus I know there is a Chapel Choir, but is that the only one? According to the prospectus, the ability to sight read is essential, but I have done very little sight reading! However, I do have my RIAM Bronze, Silver and Gold Recital medals with a distinction in gold, does anyone know if this could be a substitute? I was heavily involved with the choir in my secondary school so I'd hate to have no choir for the next four years if I get accepted to Trinity!

mambo

Well, there's the University of Dublin Choral Society, the largest choir in Trinity.

http://www.udcs.org/

nicola09

Thank you, I'll check it out!!:D

dabh

nicola09 wrote: »

I'm just wondering if anyone on here is involved with choirs in TCD? From reading the prospectus I know there is a Chapel Choir, but is that the only one? According to the prospectus, the ability to sight read is essential, but I have done very little sight reading! However, I do have my RIAM Bronze, Silver and Gold Recital medals with a distinction in gold, does anyone know if this could be a substitute? I was heavily involved with the choir in my secondary school so I'd hate to have no choir for the next four years if I get accepted to Trinity!

You might check out the Trinity College Singers (mixed-voice) and the Boydell Singers (all-female).

Piste

The chapel choir has a scholarship too, but it seems fairly intensive with 2 church services a week and lord knows how much practice.

Scarinae

I was going to give you links to the websites for the Chapel Choir and Singers, but they don't seem to have been updated in years!

Anyway, Singers and the Boydell Singers (all-female) are smallish choirs, you have to do an audition to get into them and I hear their performances are excellent. Chapel choir, as someone already said, do several church services a week, and I think they do mainly churchy music rather than the more contemporary stuff that Singers sometimes do. The Choral society are the largest choir, and have a lot of members that are postgrads and staff. They sometimes do concerts in the National Concert Hall, there's probably more details on the webpage

Katerrrs

Hey Nicola,
if you're hoping to come to trinity next year and want to sing, then the chapel choir should defs be your first port of call. I'm just finished first year and was a half-scholar in the choir this year, and i have to say that the chapel choir is probably definitely my favourite thing about college. As a member of the chapel choir, you're expected to sing at at least one of the 2 services per week (Thursday Evensong or Sunday eucharist), but only scholars are expected to attend every single service that they're salaried for. If you choose to sing on Sunday, the only commitment you're expected to make is to turn up to the chapel at 9.30am for a short practice before the service which begins at 10.45am. if you want to sing on Thursdays instead, then this involves a practice on tuesday afternoons and then the service itself at 5.15pm every Thursday. This might seem like a big commitment, but believe me, you will not regret joining, as chapel is as much a social organisation as it is a choir. Most of my best college friends are people i met through the chapel choir, and there are also trips away during the year which are absolutely epic - believe it or not we just arrived home from a 9-day concert tour of Hong Kong this morning!!

As for the musical side of things, the repertoire is obviously mostly religious, but we also sing some secular music for concerts etc...
And don't worry, a reasonable ability to read music is usually adequate, and your sight-reading ability dramatically improves after a few weeks of singing with chapel anyway.

Other choirs in Trinity include the Trinity Singers, Boydell Singers and the Choral Society, but as far as i can see, Chapel is not only the best choir musically, but the most fun to be a member of, as the fact that you're singing so regularly means you automatically make a lot of close friends pretty quickly, and this really helped me to settle into college life.

Hope this helps, and don't forget to drop by the Chapel Choir stand in Freshers' Week and audition!!

nicola09

Thank you katerrs that was really helpful! I'll definitely go to the audition, would I have to sight read at that though? I have done a bit of it before for choir exams and stuff but that would have been as part of a big group! Maybe I should take lessons? Kind of wishing that I did the other RIAM vocal exams instead of the Recital medals now!

It all sounds great though, wow Hong Kong!:eek: Must have been amazing! We were supposed to go to America this year with our senior choir but then our teacher had to judge the Cork Choral Festival, so they are going next year instead!

Katerrrs

Don't stress about it, seriously. Once you're able to sight-read at all, even if it's quite bad, you'll probs get in. It's more about your singing voice i think, and the piano helps you when you're sight-reading the hymn they give you anyway so you'll be grand!!
You seem to be pretty into choral singing so you'll really enjoy the chapel choir i'd say. See you next year hopefully!!

HerringKing

Don't worry about the audition for Chapel. I'm a first year too, and had absolutely no sight-singing experience (not evem much music theory) when I went to the audition. They ask you to sing a song first, and if they can tell that you're a good singer then they're really encouraging with the sight-reading. Definitely come along, it is a lot of fun and yes, Hong Kong was epic.

Piste

Is it possible to join all the choirs or is that a bit too ambitious?

Katerrrs

Who's Herring king?? lol

HerringKing

I know that a lot of people do both Singers and Chapel, and you could probably just about manage to do Choral Soc too.. It would probably limit you in terms of time to do any other society stuff. And I'm Marc Katerrrs... HerringKing was a Player's thing.

Jammyc

Hmm, hopefully going to Trinity next year, from what Ive heard theres a laid back choir and a dead serious one! Which is which? Id like to join the ole laid back'un then see how things go!:D

Katerrrs

Katerrrs wrote: »

I know that a lot of people do both Singers and Chapel, and you could probably just about manage to do Choral Soc too.. It would probably limit you in terms of time to do any other society stuff. And I'm Marc Katerrrs... HerringKing was a Player's thing.

Ah Marc, I suspected it was you! Fancy seeing you here!

And the 'laid-back' choir you're talking about is probably the choral soc or singers. Join one of them and chapel choir and see which you like best sure... but chapel really isn't as 'serious' as it's made out to be - People just end up doing loads of stuff with chapel because they enjoy it!

Piste

Is it very hard toget into Chapel? I heard it was pretty competitive.

Katerrrs

Once you're a reasonable-enough singer with a bit of choral experience you should be fine i'd say!!