Alongside all the other “firsts” of the past year, Trinity’s eight choirs will join forces this week for a never-done-before grand concert. “Choirs of Trinity” will showcase pieces by Trinity Choral Society, Chapel Choir, Trinity College Singers and their four choirs – Trinity Singers, Boydell Singers, Trinity Belles and Trinitones – as well as the Campanile Consort, a student group from the H5 music department, and Diverse Voices, the newest group on campus.
Patrick Kennedy, the conductor of the Chapel Choir and co-director of Trinitones, is responsible for getting the idea off the ground. Speaking to The University Times, he said: “I thought: ‘Here’s an opportunity for us all to put on an end of term concert that everyone can be part of’, because I didn’t see anyone being able to put together a term concert on their own”.
“We kind of left it up to each choir to decide what piece they were going to do and to work on the audio or the video editing themselves. Then they just sent them all in when they were finished”, said Kennedy, who went on to explain that the rest would be edited by computer science graduate and Trinitone Ben Steacy.
“So between himself and myself, it’ll be pieced together in a way that I think works as a concert, because all the choirs are completely different genres and styles.”
Trinity’s choirs, like most societies, have been sorely missing the social aspect of in-person rehearsals. “It’s just hearing some harmony, I think people miss”, said Kennedy. “People can practice their music and they can look at the scores, and you can talk about the pieces and listen to other recordings. I don’t think there’s any issue in learning the actual music.”
“I think the issue is that 30 second conversation you have with someone coming up the stairs into rehearsal, or between pieces like that, and that’s the little snippet that people miss, just that human interaction with the person sitting beside them”, he lamented.
On what this year has looked like for the Chapel Choir, Kennedy says the committee has tried to maintain some semblance of normality. “We decided to have rehearsals as normal, but then we continued having online services, where everyone just sang solos rather than singing together”, he said, also mentioning the special social rehearsals the choir has run.
“I think a lot of choirs have done that – try and put aside a section of each rehearsal for just, like, chatting about people’s lives, exams, or whatever is going on”, he added.
Kennedy acknowledges how strange it is that the only College social life first year students know is one through Zoom: “We have members who obviously have known each other now for the whole year and have never seen each other in real life.”
The challenge of engaging freshers has been one faced by every society on campus this year. Kennedy said his committee combated this through games and plenty of breakout rooms. The Chapel Choir has also tried to create a “less strict” environment in rehearsals.
The Central Societies Committee has provided additional support to Trinity’s choirs this year through running editing workshops and paying for the full Adobe Suite, which includes Premiere Pro, an editing software, for societies that need it. One workshop Kennedy found particularly useful was taught by conductor Ciarán Kelly, and attendees were taught “how to simply run a Zoom rehearsal, compared to an in-person one”.
Kelly also had “lots of tips and tricks on how to keep people engaged and to just try and get the most out of people singing at home”.
While everyone is itching to get back to packed rooms and live harmony, in the meantime, Kennedy hopes this concert will highlight the “diversity of choirs” on Trinity’s campus, “from very traditional to ultramodern”.
The “Choirs of Trinity” concert will take place this Wednesday at 8pm. It can be livestreamed via a link which will be posted on the concert Facebook event.
