The Choral

The Choral Scholars is an internationally acclaimed chamber choir of gifted student singers led by founding Artistic Director, Dr. Desmond Earley, based at University College Dublin College of Arts & Humanities. Scholars come from various academic disciplines and commit to an intensive programme of choral study.

Directed by Desmond Earley, the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin are internationally renowned for stunning performances, artistic collaborations, recordings, video productions, and innovative commissioning projects. Here they return with a digital EP of Irish and Scottish Gaelic songs in time to celebrate St Patrick’s Day on 17 March 2024. Three of the tracks are new arrangements by Desmond Earley, with translations by Brian Ó hUigínn and they are accompanied by the newly formed Solstice Ensemble, who will join them on their next album, due out on Signum Records in September 2024.

Poetry and music accomplish together what neither can accomplish alone. For the majority of the works on this album, John Wykoff collaborated with one of the best choral lyricists of our time. In writing the words for many of the works, Charles Anthony Silvestri was finely sensitive to the ways in which music transforms a text and is transformed in return. His lyrics are imaginative and beautiful, yet he leaves room for music to interpret the text and divert it's meaning…

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, groups that played period instruments started to appear. They were strongly associated with particular conductors, usually the musician who formed each ensemble, and generally were not full-time organizations. Typically, they gathered for a limited number of concerts and recordings a year, and their membership was variable. Half the people playing on one day's studio session as the London Classical Players might have been on stage the week before as part of the Academy of Ancient Music. In 1986, a group of the best of these freelance players sought increased security and the artistic benefits of performing regularly as a permanent orchestra, and formed the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As most London orchestras, they organized themselves into a self-governing co-operative owned by the musicians. As a matter of policy, they decided against appointing anyone as its music director or permanent conductor. This meant they had to shine from the outset to attract the best interpreters to lead their performances.

"Light Eternal" shows the whole creative spectrum of Morten Lauridsen, one of the great composers of choral music of our time. No one else succeeds in lending so much expressiveness and mysticism to the human voice

Hermann Max and his Rheinische Kantorei present an entirely new facet in the oeuvre of the opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer on this recording premiere of his sacred chroal works. In the booklet, Max himself writes, ""The protagonists of the Enlightenment influenced Giacomo's social network in letters and conversations during his early years. It was only logical that religious texts were viewed more in literary terms than as faith documents to be taken seriously. The stories from the Bible contradicting the laws of nature were taken more nonchalantly than with absolute seriousness and naive faith. Jesus often was mentioned no longer as the Son of God but as the most important human being ever born.