The Full Story
Wicklow Sings is a community arts festival for choirs based in County Wicklow. Established in 2016, it is an annual event held in Spring every year in Greystones.
Wicklow Sings is a platform for Wicklow-based choirs to gather, perform, celebrate and showcase their choirs, music, work and people. The highlight is a large-scale concert hosted by Temple Carrig School, featuring each choir, and concluding with a powerful finale involving all the choirs in a massed choral performance. The Festival is a hugely successful and popular event for Wicklow choirs, audiences and the wider community.
Wicklow Sings is a non-competitive, inclusive and multi-generational event. A diverse mix of choirs from every part of the County are represented from community choirs, chamber groups and choral societies, to barbershop, acapella, school choirs, and children’s choirs, featuring a broad range of repertoire (traditional choral, pop, gospel, musicals, barbershop, etc).
Wicklow Sings was founded in 2016 by Dara Mac Mahon, a Wicklow based musician, and Alan Cox, principal of Temple Carrig School, Greystones.
2023 Festival Team
Dara Mac Mahon
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Dara is a music educator, facilitator and singing specialist. Working with people of all ages and abilities, she has a special interest in Singing for Health and Wellbeing. Dara believes singing
promotes creativity, confidence and wellbeing, and builds community, which inspired her to set up Wicklow Sings in 2016. Dara runs her own singing studio, Greystones Vocal Academy, and is
involved with many community and health singing projects, for example supporting people with Long Covid, dementia and Parkinsons. She has been Music Director of the Wicklow Parkinsons Choir since
it began in 2014.
Jamie Lyon
Jamie is a passionate believer in group singing as a resource for a healthy community. Currently pursuing her Masters in Vocal Pedagogy/Singing for Health, (University of Wales) she is also participating in Trauma and Mental Health Informed training for Singing Leaders with Music for Good and the Sing UP foundation in the UK. Jamie has worked alongside the Wicklow Arts office as part of their Choral Activation Plan and is the co-director of the Unity Gospel Choir.