For this year's First Fortnight festival, socially engaged composer, musical director, and musician Norah Walsh has composed a choral piece inspired by the vision and aims of First Fortnight; to end the stigma associated with mental ill health.
Working with choirs from counties Down, Dublin, Kildare and Kerry and engaging with a collective community of 200 people, Norah's piece premieres at St. Patrick Cathedral, Dublin on 16th January - she introduces the work below.
What is it about singing in a choir that is so good for one's mental health?
The list of contributory factors keeps getting longer, and they are well documented by professionals from both the musical and medical communities. Our natural impulse for creativity – a core element in our human make-up - is satisfied; being present in the moment, the focus and concentration, forcing life’s worries into the background; the social aspect, the communities that are built from choirs; the release of a cocktail of feel-good chemicals; and the relatively complex cognitive engagement involved in making music that enhances brain health – this is a bonus. Is there also a magical ingredient to music? Are there physical vibrations in the body when resonance occurs, when an anticipated resolution happens, when aural expectations are met? And what of the intangible and transient nature of it - you hear it, then it’s gone – that only adds to the mystique. Long may it continue to enhance our lives.
I was first introduced to First Fortnight when I became involved in a choral performance at the festival in 2016. The vision and goals of the organisation were therefore already familiar to me when artistic director Maria Fleming contacted me to compose a choral work on the subject of music and mental health. This was a happy fit because it combines my work as a composer and my work as a musical director of choirs, and on a theme that is contemporary and relevant.
Choir is a source of solace, mindfulness, release, motivation, endorsement, escape, affirmation, fun, joy; it reduces the worries, the fears, the clutter of daily life.
The compositional process was collaborative. I met with five different choirs, from Dingle to Larne, to discuss the effect that music has on mental health. Choirs have bonding aspects to them that are quite separate from the musical element: teamwork, co-dependency, the working together towards a common goal; the sense of community, the social element, the creation of a network that starts with sharing sheet music but expands into many areas of life; a shared joy in the achievement of successfully navigating a tricky piece, and in further sharing the fruits of the work with others in a performance. The workshops brought this bonding to a new level with their discussion of a serious and personal topic.
We broke the ice, sang a little and then discussed in depth the positive influence of music - how does it manifest itself, is the impact big or small, and so on. The responses were enlightening and compelling. They were also consistent, with the same themes coming up no matter what the background of the group: choir is a source of solace, mindfulness, release, motivation, endorsement, escape, affirmation, fun, joy; it reduces the worries, the fears, the clutter of daily life.
My job was then to express in text and music the concepts, themes and message that emerged and to try to do justice to the eloquence and openness of participants. The text is sometimes symbolic in the language used, but also sometimes quite literal reflecting the very clear ideas communicated, and with an imperative mood evolving – a call to sing. Both the text and music track the rise and fall of the journey of well-being, celebrating the good and also acknowledging the challenges.
Arrangements of the work have been written for choirs of different musical forces including those who participated in the workshops: I am very excited that the groups who inspired it will be among those to sing it throughout 2025.
In the meantime, I am very much looking forward to the première on 16th January, which will be performed by award-winning Laetare Vocal Ensemble conducted by Róisín Blunnie: a real treat and a privilege for the first fortnight of the new year.
First Fortnight In partnership with Sing Ireland, Centre for Contemporary Music presents The Art of Mental Health; featuring Laetare Vocal Ensemble with conductor Róisín Blunnie, at St. Patrick Cathedral, Dublin on Thursday January 16th 2025 - find out more here.
