Tolka Chorus invited residents of County Meath and County Dublin to participate in a series of choral workshops at the river Tolka as part of the Tolka Nights project. Led by John D’Arcy, the workshops explored a range of musical strategies for listening, composing, performing and improvising. During the workshops based at Mulhuddart Community Centre, participants used their voices to recreate the sounds of the river, its communities and its localities.
Participants were led through a collaborative process to curate local history and literature into lyrics for their own musical compositions. Together they developed their own methods of vocal improvisation and verbal notation to produce a group performance based on an imagined journey along the river Tolka.
The participants in the Tolka Chorus workshops were Adrian Kennedy, Áine Cody, Bronwyn Bolton-Warberg, Esther Gray and Una Lee.
Sharing their songbook with the public at Tolka Valley Park, Tolka Chorus invited all curious listeners to add their voices to these songs of the river.
The following film shows excerpts from the live performance at Tolka Valley Park:
The following film shows the animated map-score projected at the time of a live choral performance led by John D’Arcy. The soundtrack to this film is a recording of live performance during workshops.
The following film shows the group using maps as graphic scores during the first workshop: