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Davina Olufade, National Concert Hall Picture Credit: Andres Poveda

Mary Immaculate
College

Mary Immaculate College

Song Seeking amongst Ireland’s asylum seekers.

Song Seeking is a cross agency collaboration between Mary Immaculate College, Sing Ireland and the Irish Refugee Council, and in addition involves further collaboration with six direct provision centres, four choral facilitators, a composer, local singing groups, the National Concert Hall and centrally, the singers themselves – adults, children and young people – who live in direct provision. All of these many collaborators enable singing, making and sharing music, thus facilitating communities to come together through creative endeavour.

Eniola Bamgbose, National Concert Hall Picture Credit: Andres Poveda

 

Andrey Antoniuk of Citadel

"I begin to feel part of this beautiful society in Ireland. First of all, it is a great honour for me and a very interesting experience to perform in such a hall. This has never happened before in my life."

In addition to the group singing workshops,  there was a new choral commission written by Dr Sean Doherty through participatory workshops with the men, women and children involved, and moments of community integration through ‘Sing In’ days with local choirs. Research throughout the process and from multiple perspectives was integral to the project.  The project is a cross-agency collaboration between Mary Immaculate College, Sing Ireland and the Irish Refugee Council.

Performance National Concert Hall

The project culminated in a The Big Sing concert, at the National Concert Hall on 9th June 2019 .The six choral groups were joined on the day by community choirs and guest performers Citadel who are musicians from Burundi, South Africa, Algeria, Bangladesh, India, Ukraine and Russia who live in the Kinsale Road Direct Provision centre.

Mary Immaculate College

To read more about the finding and recommendations of this important research project, please click here.

To read the Song Seeking Songbook: Voices and optional accompaniment, please click here

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