Occasional Projects

Waterford Concert Orchestra

Waterford Concert Orchestra was founded by Kevin O’Carroll in 2010 with the intention of providing entertaining and educational concerts for primary school children in Waterford and its hinterland.  These educational concerts continued until 2014 when the economic downturn made it difficult to maintain economic feasibility. When fully functioning, these concerts attracted over 3,000 school children who were introduced to each family of the orchestra.  In an effort to ensure that each family of the orchestra was featured, the four-year cycle of concerts were structured around brass (year 1), percussion (year 2), woodwind (year 3) and strings (year 4).  It is hoped that, as the economic situation continues to improve, the Primary Schools Concert Series can be revived.

Though set up to work on schools concerts the orchestra developed to a high standard and  performed many concerts for the general public.  The repertoire ranged from standard classical works through to music from movies and musicals.  Details of these concerts and reactions to them can be found in the blog section.

Vocalis

Some years ago Kevin O’Carroll became aware of a number of individuals living and working in the South-East who had at one time worked professionally as singers with the National Chamber Choir, Anúna or other professional groups. By bringing these individuals together a quality octet was formed.  This group comes together on a project basis.  To date they have worked on pieces as diverse as Funeral Sentences by Purcell and Requiem by Herbert Howells.

Vox Humana

As part of his PhD research Kevin needed a choir to perform a selection of pieces from the Renaissance era.  To this end, choristers from four different Waterford based groups (and none) were invited to come together to perform works by Viadana, Tallis, Byrd, Lassus etc.  It is hoped that this group may come together in the not too distant future to explore more of the repertoire from this treasury of choral music.