The very first Irish International A Capella Festival takes place in Dublin from July 14 to 16 July with a programme featuring international and Irish close harmony groups, including local act Ardú
For most causal listeners, a cappella singing may summon up images of 80s chart botherers The Flying Pickets harmonising on their cover of Yazoo’s Only You or The Housemartins crooning Caravan of Love in their crew necks and hoodies.
The oft-maligned genre was even lampooned in a classic episode of The Simpsons when Homer recalled his time with barbershop quarter The Be Sharps.
For some unbelievers, the technically difficult singing style is the musical equivalent of jazz hands. However, the success of US a cappella acts like Straight No Chaser and Pentatonix, the hit movie Pitch Perfect, and a growing international close harmony singing scene is changing the face of an historical art form.
It seems that the power and beauty of the human voice is an irresistible force.
Ireland’s own contribution to the genre has included The Voice Squad and Anuna but despite our own rich vocal singing heritage including, of course, Sean-nós, a cappella is a relatively unknown quantity here.
The very first Irish International A Cappella Festival could change all that. Taking place in Dublin from July 14 to 16, it’s Ireland’s first dedicated a cappella festival and boasts a line-up featuring close harmony and ensemble singing acts including The Swingles and Ardú, who are one of Ireland’s precious few a cappella groups.
Leanne Fitzgerald is a member of Ardú and she’s also the Festival Manager for the Irish International A Cappella Festival. The 25-year-old from Lixnaw, the tiny Kerry village which Paul Galvin put on the map, says Ardú - meaning meaning rise up or elevate - are only too well aware of Ireland’s lack of an a cappella scene.
"There are so many choirs here but a cappella singing hasn’t really taken off," she says. "Even barbershop has its own convention in Cork every October so to see there was a real gap in the market was really quite shocking for us and we were a bit jealous to see the platforms for a cappella in America where a cappella is so, so big. It’s huge. In the UK and Europe you have all these groups like the King Singers who are really, really cool.
"It just doesn’t seem to be happening in Ireland and that’s part of our ethos - to create these platforms because we want to develop the genre because we love it."
Leanne says her ensemble was inspired to bring a cappella to a wider audience in Ireland after they appeared at the London a cappella festival in 2015.
"That was a really inspiring trip for us," she says. "To see the audiences they were able to attract and the different variety of groups they had performing. They had the London Youth Choir and The Swingles and we were absolutely blown away by it.
"We were like, we need something like this in Ireland, especially for our group and the type of music we’re singing. We don’t really have any other type of platform - we’ve gone to all the choral festivals in Ireland and we really enjoy all those experiences but to have a dedicated musical platform for the type of music we want to perform would be great."
Over the past few years, Ardú have performed throughout Ireland and the UK and were awarded first place at the Cork International Choral Festival 2017 in both the National Chamber Choir & Vocal Ensembles and Light, Jazz & Popular Music categories. They were previously awarded National Vocal Ensemble Champions at City of Derry International Choral Festival 2015 and placed Runners Up in RTÉ lyric fm's Choirs for Christmas Competition 2015.
Ardú style themselves as "contemporary Celtic" and their debut album NOVA, which was released in 2015, features their unique vocal take on songs by Coldplay, Bryan Adams and Queen.
"I’d like to do a bit more rock music," says Leanne. "I’d like to do a Hozier song, that would be so amazing. He’s so iconic. That kind of stuff would be so cool to do, it would be really impressive sang live. We already have a bit of Queen in our repertoire and we love doing songs like that because it just opens up so much more scope for us."
Given its religious connotations and barbershop preppiness, a cappella may have a slight image problem. However, Leanne hopes that the Irish International A Capella Festival, some of which will be recorded by RTÉ lyric fm for future broadcast, will help shake off any misconceptions.
"I think people do think it has a nerdy kind of vibe to it because it’s so associated with college in America and the universities churn out barbershop groups and a cappella groups that may seem like a young person’s nerdy clique," she says.
"But I think it’s kind of changing with groups like Pentatonix coming up in the past five years, They performed in the Olympia in Dublin last summer and we went along and it was like being at a Beyoncé gig!
"People were screaming and singing along and I thought, this is definitely a completely different vibe from what you would associate with a cappella. So I think it’s changing and getting a bit cooler as people get more familiar with it."
Full details of Irish International A Capella Festival can be found here.
Alan Corr @corralan
