Acquiring the numbers for Mullingar's six busy choirs
Niall Horan, Joe Dolan, Niall Breslin, The Swarbriggs – Mullingar has always been known for the quality of its singers. But are there enough other singers around town to sustain six choirs?
Mullingar Arts Centre has announced that it intends launching two new choirs – Sweet Tunes, for retired people, and Loud and Proud, for unemployed people, which, with the Mullingar Gospel Choir will take the number of choirs based at the centre to three.
Meanwhile, the Mullingar Charity Variety Group has its Children’s Choir, and an adult show choir. Then there’s the Choral Society; and the Mullingar Cathedral Choir. Separately, Loreto College also has a choir, made up of students.
Angela Lynch, of Mullingar Arts Centre is confident that the numbers are out there.
“I think there are enough singers, because you are talking about different groups,” she says, pointing out that the two new choirs will meet on weekday mornings – the Sweet Tunes choir on Tuesdays from 11am to 12.30pm, and the Loud and Proud singers on Wednesdays, also from 11am to 12.30pm.
“It’s something that I have had in mind for quite a while,” says Angela.
“So many people are retiring so much earlier now – people in their mid-50s, and night time is grand: you are sitting down and looking at TV, but during the day, filling your time can be that bit more difficult – and it’s the same for people without jobs. I even know that myself from my summer holidays.
“I just thought: ‘mornings’, because people will say: ‘today I’m going to the arts centre, and there’ll be music, and a chat and whatever’, and it’s one day that people will have something definite to get up for.”
A bonus for both groups is that there is no cost involved.
Some people may even decide to join both choirs – and, Angela jokes, if they want to join the Gospel Choir and get involved in the panto too, all the better!
She believes Mullingar can more than sustain this number of singing groups:
“This town is amazing: I’m involved in the music scene since I was seven years of age, and even at that stage, my mother was in the Choral Society; my uncles were taking part in musicals back in the ’60s, and Mullingar has always been like this. It’s only when you go to other towns that you realise not every town has this much music going on.”
Anyone interested in getting involved in any of the Mullingar Arts Centre choirs can ring 044 9347777 and put their names down.
Mullingar Choral Society, founded in 1968 and with more than 100 members, is planning two perform two concerts: a Christmas Carol concert at St Paul’s Church, Mullingar, on December 8; and the Spring Concert, in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar on March 9 2014.
The Mullingar Charity Variety Group’s two choirs have been running for three years now. The choirs stage a big concert at the start of summer each year, and have plenty of other outings as well.
The Mullingar Charity Variety Group’s Children’s Show Choir starts rehearsals this Wednesday September 11 from 6-7pm for 7-9 years, and from 7.15-8.15pm for those aged 10 and over.
The group’s Adult Show choir sessions are on Mondays from 8-9.30pm. Both choirs meet at the Group’s studios at Forest Park (directions on www.mullingarcvg.com).