West Cork choir's crowd-funding bid to get to Carnegie Hall

WEST Cork Choral Singers have set up a crowd-funding page to support their trip to New York next January – to perform in Carnegie Hall.

The choir – which features between 40 and 50 men and women from the locality, as well as eight different nationalities who have made West Cork their home – will join choirs from 14 other countries for a special performance at the famous Midtown venue in Manhattan on January 15th 2018.

A unified choir involving 500 singers, plus a full orchestra, will perform the premiere of Sir Karl Jenkins’ Sing! The Music Was Given and The Armed Man.

Most of the West Cork Choral Singers will be making the journey, but first they have to raise around €700 each to defray costs, plus pay for their own flights and accommodation, but all are willing because, as one member, Jacqueline Weij, told The Southern Star: ‘It’s not every day you get to sing in Carnegie Hall.’

The crowd funding campaign on gofundme.com has been set up to help the choir meet the costs incurred in making the trip. 

According to Jacqueline Weij, ‘This is going to be a dream experience. We are all looking forward to the excitement of being part of a huge choir. The choir of 500 will merge to become one big instrument and we’ll get to become part of something that is so much bigger than ourselves.’

In April, Diana Llewellyn, the Welsh musical director of the West Cork Choral Singers, who has lived in Ballydehob for the 24 years, said the choir is already familiar with Jenkins’ work, having performed his Stabat Mater – which is based on a 13th-century prayer – in Abbeystrewery Church in April. She said the event will be ‘a huge musical learning experience for the choir.’  To lend support, see West Cork to New York in Song on Gofundme.com.