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ARTSCAPE:THERE WILL BE a landmark moment for the Irish Chamber Choir of Paris this month when it performs in Ireland for the first time, writes RUADHÁN MAC CORMAIC. Under the aegis of the Irish Cultural Centre, the choir was assembled in 2004 by musical director Jean-Charles Léon, a musicologist and teacher at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, with more than 20 years of experience as a choirmaster. Buoyed by a performance at the Irish Embassy in Paris last week, the 16 female singers (mostly French, with a representative each from Ireland and the US) will perform three concerts in Dublin, Maynooth and Galway.

For the Irish Cultural Centre, the tour is something of a departure. Every year the choir presents a programme of concerts at the centre and at French venues and festivals, but this will be its first visit to Ireland. And although Michel Abécassis’s adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s The Woman Who Walked Into Doorsand Paula Spencer(featuring Franco-Irish actor Olwen Fouéré) was “brought home” for a week-long run at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin last year, the centre’s director, Sheila Pratschke, says “this will be the first time apart from that that we have brought something from Paris back to Ireland. It should be somewhat of a two-way traffic. I’m looking forward to it immensely. I look forward to seeing how they react and what they think of Ireland. It’s a strange time, I suppose, to visit Ireland, but hopefully the weather will be beautiful at the end of April.”