Following a two-year hiatus, the AIMS Choral Festival returns to New Ross and we are really looking forward to it. We have won the ‘Mixed Choir’ competition on three occasions so …… no pressure!

We’ve been in competition mode for the last few months and didn’t even take an Easter break. Despite COVID causing our numbers to fluctuate on a weekly basis, we have managed to prepare seven songs for the festival.

The preparation involves adherence to the rules as laid out in the Emer Hartnett “Handbook of Choral Excellence”. The cornerstone of this methodology is the ‘no breathing’ rule, with which all members are familiar. Correct enunciation of diphthongs, digraphs, vowels and consonants is paramount and we’ve been advised that happy songs demand happy faces!

Music folders are banned from next week (or was it last week?) and, from now on, all eyes will be on Emer. Don’t be fooled, she hears every note that each of us is singing and, if you get ‘the look’, you’ll know that it’s you who has transgressed!

The festival motto is ‘Hear it, See it, Live it’. To that we’ll add ‘Love it’ and ‘Win it’.
Roll on Sunday, May 22nd. The ‘eyes’ will have it……. Emer’s, that is