We practise each week in Raheny Church, Station Road, D5 on Thursday evenings. The DART station is beside the church and there are bus stops opposite. There is car parking also beside the church. Fir Dolce meet at 7.15pm and Dolce at 8.00pm. Practice finishes at 10pm.
Weekly Rehearsals
Structure
Practice starts with a fun warmup including vocal and tuning exercises. After this, the practice is sometimes split with men going to one room to learn their lines while ladies remain in the hall to learn theirs. After 30 minutes or so the choir reunites to work together. There is a break at around 9.00pm, with opportunities to mingle and learn names and Deirdre of the altos regularly provides us with liqourice allsorts!
Music
Each member receives a folder for the their music on joining. All of the music is available to download from our site or from other sites e.g. CPDL. Don’t worry if you don’t read music, recordings of each line are available to download (again on the members’ section of our website). If you prefer to listen to CDs these can be organised too.
Subscriptions
Each member is asked to pay a subscription of €85 per person per term, there are two terms running from September to December and January to May. The sub covers the cost of hiring the practice venue, MD and accompanist fees, insurance, music, competition entries, membership of Sing Ireland, running costs of concerts etc. Social activities are not covered by the subs.
Performances
What and Where We Perform
Each Christmas Dolce presents a Christmas concert. During the Christmas season we also try to take part in as many charity events as is reasonable for members. In recent years these have included carol singing for various charities around housing estates, in the Powerscourt Townhouse Shopping Centre and on the streets of the city centre. We have also sung in various nursing homes for the residents coming up to Christmas. In 2009 we sang in St. Patrick’s Cathedral as part of a charity concert for the Peter McVerry Trust. Members who are interested in singing solo during our concerts have a chance to audition separately with Deirdre. Contact Deirdre for more details. Often during the second term we concentrate on competitions, and travel to various choral festivals. Sometimes we hold a concert, sometimes with visiting choirs – in the past we have sung with choirs from Germany and Norway.
Uniform
The uniform for the choir is black with a coloured flower for ladies. Men wear a black suit with either a black or white shirt and lilac or red bow tie depending on the performance.