Glória, Dublin’s Lesbian and Gay Choir, presents their summer concert “Glória DLGC & Friends”
The concert will include a new community outreach choir. Glória, Dublin’s Lesbian and Gay Choir, returns to the National Concert Hall for its biggest summer concert on Saturday 15th June at 8:00pm. The Dublin choir is celebrating its 18th birthday and will be joined by three other gay and lesbian choirs and choruses from around Ireland. The concert will be conducted by Musical Director, Ian Packham, and one of key themes of the concert will be friendship and the positive benefits of friendship for mental health.
“We have grown as a choir for 18 years thanks to the support of our friends and supporters,” said Barry Dowling, chairperson of Glória. “This year we want to focus particularly on creating awareness of mental health issues, and the benefits that belonging to a group such as this can bring. To highlight that theme we created a special Outreach Choir with the help of the Clondalkin Community Action on Suicide and Quarryvale Family Resource Centre who work to promote mental health well-being. Like previous years this choir also include our friends, families and fans from around the country.
Glória has 65 singing members across four sections (sopranos, altos, tenors and basses). When the choir started in 1995, it had only 25 members and for a long time we were really Ireland’s Lesbian and Gay Choir, now thankfully we are not alone and are looking forward to being joined by Choral Con Fusion from Cork, Quire – Belfast’s lgbt singers, and The Dublin Gay Men’s Chorus. “
“We are looking forward to taking people on a journey from musicals to madrigals, from classical to camp,” said Ian Packham, Glória’s Musical Director. “We’ll feature some songs from our extensive back catalogue which have not been heard in a long time as well as a wide range of new songs which we hope will become audience favourites. Where else could you hear classical pieces from Rachmaninov and Mozart to songs from Cohen, U2, Abba and The Sound of Music!
It’s wonderful to see how this choir has grown,” said Packham, “and to see the commitment and enthusiasm of these women and men. These are all busy people; some are studying, most have busy careers, and some have kids at home. They all give up most of their social life from September to June to prepare for this.”
Tickets are on sale now from the National Concert Hall box office on www.nch.ie or 01 4170000.
For queries please contact Richard Deane, Public Relations Officer for the choir by email on publicity@gloria.ie