‘My throat feels weird when I don’t sing’: life in the Palestrina Choir

The diverse members of the Palestrina children’s choirs in Dublin might have the voices of angels, but there’s devilment there too

"Don't mess with them now boys. Just hold them . . ."

Choirboys and candles. It’s a combination guaranteed to melt even the most cynical of hearts at Christmas-time. But you can see how there might be a bit of a health and safety issue as the boys of the Palestrina Choir pose for the camera, tapers in hands, eyes dancing with mischief. Add full-length robes and explosive amounts of youthful energy into the mix, and you have a worst-case scenario that doesn’t bear thinking about.

For this very reason the lads in the back rows have been issued with battery-operated LED lamps. Not as romantic as the real thing, perhaps. On the plus side (as the boys swiftly discover) they make terrific lightsabers; perfect for bopping the head of the person in front every now and again.

“No messing, please,” says Robbie Carroll who, as organ scholar at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral in Dublin, supervises choral rehearsals on a regular basis and knows how to restore order without so much as raising his voice.

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The messing stops. And then something astonishing happens. As if releasing a bird into the wild, conductor Blánaid Murphy casually flicks her wrist, and the choir takes off, the nave of the church filling with the lilt and sway of I Saw Three Ships, the unaccompanied voices soaring in unison, the high notes spine-tinglingly accurate.

They follow it with a lively Ding Dong Merrily, both of which – along with excerpts from Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols and some arrangements of Irish carols – the boys will sing at their Christmas concert at the National Concert Hall on December 3rd.

In fine voice

Photographs safely in the bag and candles safely extinguished, we head up many flights of circular granite stairs to the rehearsal room. On the other side of the door, most of the choir is going through its musical warm-ups. On this side sits a group of volunteers for interview.

What’s the best thing about singing in the choir? A hand shoots up. “I get to make loads of friends and learn music and singing and lots more,” says Conor. Everyone nods agreement. And the worst thing? Silence. Okay, then, the toughest thing? “The hours,” Florence offers.

Aaron elaborates. “We go to choir three times a week. It’s three hours on Wednesdays and Fridays, and I have loads of homework after that.”

“And,” adds Josh, “it’s, like, five hours on Sundays.” Wow. This is serious dedication.

And what about Christmas; what are you guys all doing for Christmas? “We’re coming in here in the morning for Mass,” says Nino.

“Basically,” Josh says, his timing spot-on, “we’re living in slavery.” At which everyone falls around laughing, proving that the exact opposite is the case.

We digress into talk of Christmas presents. Aaron is getting a bike, Victoria an Our Generation doll. Conor opts for that old favourite, “surprises”. Josh is hoping for a Segway. Come again? “It’s like a hoverboard,” he says, “but instead of handles you just lean forward and it goes.” Of course it does.

Nino, though, wants to get back to the music. “Choir is like a getaway from all the work and stress of school,” she says. “Like, a break from reality, and here we get to express ourselves a bit, because we all love singing and we’re all good musicians.”

There's a major outbreak of murmuring and nodding. "My throat always feels weird when I don't sing," says Daniel, one of the youngest choristers. At the National Concert Hall, he'll be one of the probationers who come on stage in their white robes to sing Away in a Manger.

This is the image of the boy chorister most of us have in our heads, but what is striking about this group is how much of a variation they offer on that traditional stereotype. There are boys and there are girls. There are all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. Daniel’s surname is Osojnik. Conor is of African descent. Nino and Anna, although born here, hail from Tbilisi, Georgia; there are also choristers from China, the Philippines, Romania, the Netherlands and Spain.

“I think we just represent what’s happening in Ireland,” says Murphy. “We go to schools, we do an aptitude test, and if the children do well we call them in. We wouldn’t pay attention to their ethnic background. We wouldn’t even know what background they actually have.”

Female influence

It's a development the choir's founder, Edward Martyn, couldn't possibly have foreseen. Martyn, a wealthy landowner who also helped set up the Abbey Theatre with WB Yeats and Lady Gregory, provided the finance for the Palestrina and he drew up the ground rules, in which he specified that the choir must be all male.

“But it never even occurred to him to write that the conductor must be male,” says Murphy with a beatific smile.

Martyn’s musical standards were high. Not in his wildest dreams, however, could he have imagined that from the 1980s onwards his choir would be in the hands of three of the most talented conductors in the history of Irish choral music, all of them women. Ite O’Donovan was followed by Orla Barry, and Murphy was appointed in 2002.

“When I came here it was very middle-class, white and male,” she says. “Now we have the girls’ choir, and we have children from all walks of life and all types of nationalities. It’s a very big change, and a very welcome change.”

Murphy’s determination to introduce a girls’ choir to the Pro came to fruition in 2009. But while the girls and boys sing together from time to time, she has no plans to integrate the two groups, but for musical rather than theological reasons.

“They both make a very beautiful sound, but they’re definitely different,” she says. “The boys have a more penetrating sound. I think you hear, in a boys’ choir, the fragility, the fact that the voices go. The girls have a very sweet sound; and of course you can have the girls a little bit older, because their voices don’t change in the same way.”

For Germaine Carlos, the choir’s manager of more than eight years, the new inclusiveness is a delight. “What I love about the choir is the sheer diversity of students we see now,” she says.

"We don't know who we're getting in the door, and that's what's really, really nice. They don't have to have any musical background. They come in and they're trained from seven up. They're picking up the Beano and then, within a year, they're going in singing the Mozart Requiem. And it's just as natural and as easy as that."

The chorister programme at the Pro offers both boys and girls a top-notch classical training. But what do they listen to on their phones? Josh breaks into a few dude-type moves. He's Silento, doing a bit of Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae). Anna prefers Justin Bieber's new album, Purpose. (Groans from the boys). Victoria proposes Hello by Adele. "Or Focus by Ariana Grande?" somebody suggests. "Yeah. I love that song," somebody else says.

These kids know their music. They have sung in St Peter’s in Rome and at Carnegie Hall. Pierce, who is head chorister, is a bit of a rock star himself, having also toured in Germany and to London. Does it feel good when they’re all singing together?

A dozen heads bob intensely. And they know when they’re in the zone? “Oh, yeah.”

Hang on now. Do they really know when things are going well? Or does Blánaid tell them? Chuckles and snorts erupt around the room. “We know. We don’t need anyone to tell us.” Josh, inevitably, says. “Because we’re geniuses.” Can I quote you on that, Josh? “Yes.”

So I do.

  • The Palestrina Choir's Christmas concert is at the National Concert Hall on December 3rd at 8pm; the girls' choir sings Christmas Crackers in the John Field Room at 1pm on December 2nd

ANGELIC VOICES: CHORAL SEASON CHOICE

Scholastic Start

Kick off the choral season in style with the Lassus Scholars and Piccolo Lasso's annual ESB Great Christmas concert. Conducted by Ite O'Donovan, with the Orlando Chamber Orchestra and special guest mezzo-soprano Imelda Drumm, plus a generous helping of audience carols, and a singalong Hallelujah Chorus. National Concert Hall, December 2nd, 8pm

Carols in the Cathedral

The 35-strong Mornington Singers bring some of the loveliest sounds of the season to the beautiful, historic surroundings of Christ Church Cathedral. December 19th, 8pm

Ultimate Christmas

No tickets are required for this traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols at St Patrick's Cathedral, but it will be packed, so if you're thinking of going, be prepared to get there very, very early. St Patrick's Cathedral, December 20th, 3.15pm