A Little History

The choir met for the first time in October 2004 and at that time comprised of only girls. This group, though small, had excellent voices and lots of talent which was very well demonstrated the following Christmas when they sang at Bray Choral Society's (BCS) Gala Concert.

In January 2005, a concerted effort was made to recruit boys and initially, six courageous young men enlisted! This small mixed choir prepared a number of pieces and took part in BCS's concert in May, receiving a very enthusiastic reception from a packed audience in Bray's Holy Redeemer Church.

Given the quality of this performance, BYC were invited by BCS to perform the role of Piccolo Coro (small choir) in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, in their National Concert Hall performance in May 2006.  The membership was growing steadily and preparations were undertaken with great excitement and hard work. It was a huge success and the youth choir received fulsome praise for their involvement in it.

In October 2006 BYC travelled to Salzburg, Austria, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of W.A. Mozart's birth, performing Mozart's Missa Brevis in G and Haydn's Little Organ Mass in both Salzburg Cathedral and in the 8th century Fransiscan church in Sigmund Hafner Gasse, one of Salzburg's oldest churches.  This first trip abroad was a wonderful musical and social event for the members and contributed greatly to solidifying friendships within the group. Salzburg was also where The Sound Of Music was made and we had great fun visiting the many places associated with it. Some of the boys even danced out the Strife Theme from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet on the Do, Re, Mi steps in the Mirabell Gardens!

In November 2006, the choir took part in BCS's 'Viva Mozart' concert in Bray and also won first prize in the Youth Choir competition at the Kilcoole Festival.  In December, BYC performed a Christmas concert in Nun's Cross church near Ashford with Wicklow Choral Society and we also held carol singing fundraisers for the Five Loaves charity in Bray and Greystones Cancer Support.

During the first half of 2007, a lot of effort went into the improvement of standards in the choir.  Rehearsals concentrated on a relatively small number of pieces and we took part in festivals in Arklow (2nd place) and Cork (4th) and later in the year, won first prize again at the Kilcoole Festival.

2008 saw preparations for another major concert at the National Concert Hall in May, Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man - a Mass for Peace with BCS. The youth choir were full participants in this performance, singing the complete score with young Bray soloists including Sarah Power and Ross Scanlon. The performance was accompanied by the Channel 4 video footage for Karl Jenkins' own performance of the work in Cardiff and was a truly memorable high-point in the musical experiences of the BYC.

Later in 2008 we had another high point when the choir travelled to Vienna for 5 days, to coincide with the bicentenary of Haydn's death, singing in St. Stephens Cathedral and at the Haydnkirche in Eisenstadt, where the great composer Haydn worked and is buried.

BYC finished 2008 by winning the Youth Choir competition at the Kilcoole Music Festival for the third year in a row!

2009 saw the choir win the Arklow Music Festival Youth Choir competition, followed by second place in the Feis Ceoil in Dublin.  In May, we travelled to Limerick and performed Haydn's Missa Brevis in F in St. John's Cathedral to a very appreciative audience.  Concentration through the latter part of 2009 was on rehearsing for and performing in the RTE choirs competition 'An Cór'.  This is recorded for TV transmission in March and the quality of these performances led to BYC being asked to ring in the New Year as backing choir on RTE.'

If you are between the ages of 13 - 23 years, hopefully you will be inspired to join our choir and experience the joy of choral singing for yourself.