Workshops & Education
For a list of forthcoming and past Education events, please visit the LIVE page.
In 2009 Anúna inaugurated our first Education programme overseen by Michael McGlynn and Lucy Champion. Over the past two decades we have created and developed, through wide and varied performance experience all over the world, a unique set of skills. The aim of workshops which usually involve between and and three facilitators, is to reintroduce and revitalise techniques of singing, posture and reassess attitudes to choral singing. Workshop attendees in 2010 and 2011 have ranged from primary school children to singers in their eighties, with vocalists from choral groups, musical dramatic groups, gospel choirs and solo classical and popular music vocalists.
- 2011 - Choral and vocal workshops given in Poland, Sweden & Japan. You can read about the Polish workshops here.
- 2011-2012 - Michael McGlynn is an Eminent Scholar of Florida Atlantic University, and part of his tenure there will involve workshops and lecturing.
- 2011 - the First Anúna International Choral School was run successfully at Dublin's National Concert Hall. This event was attended by 80 singers from all over the world and featured an international group of Facilitators [you can read about it here]
- 2010 -2011 - Anúna have given seventeen workshops on the island of Ireland, with participants ranging children to senior citizens.
Michael McGlynn and Lucy Champion lead the adult workshops at the Cork Choral Festival, May 2010 - pictures Frances Marshall
- "what I got from the workshop was: a real sense of connectedness with your ideas around merging cultures and people : a great sense of empowerment that my singing can help me, my health and the people around me :a burst of enthusiasm to sing again and to look after myself"
- "I thought it was fantastic...It wasn't what we expected (though we didn't know what to expect)...We are both in large formal choirs and have taken some singing lessons. But this was new and much clearer than anything I've done before. The one frustration was only having two hours of it"
- "The posture and presentation of the self were very informative and I have used them not only when practising with the Choir, but I have found them useful in daily life. How one gets on and off the stage and to look as if you are enjoying what you are singing on stage puts the cream on all the hard work. The workshop was two hours long which just flew by. It would be great if it had been longer"
Choral music is the most widely-subscribed classical music performance art and yet is is seriously overlooked by Education and Artistic bodies in many cultures including Ireland. There are over 10,000 choral singers in this country alone. We feel that Choral music can
- Enhance the well-being of the individual physically and emotionally
- Provide a means for communities with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds to come together and create one common language together
- Allow ordinary people to access and perform some of the greatest artistic creations of music
For these reasons alone Anúna have created and developed this new, and exciting, facet to our group. Through interaction with Anúna's singers, choral ensembles or vocalists of all standards and levels can be exposed to some of the unique and common-sense techniques that have placed Anúna at the centre of international choral music.
Adult Workshop, Sumida Hall Tokyo, December 2009 - pictures John McGlynn
Michael McGlynn and Lucy Champion lead the adult workshops at the Cork Choral Festival, May 2010 - pictures Frances Marshall
Anúna members Eunan McDonald, Michael McGlynn and Lucy Champion working with local choirs in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, March 2010. Top three images Frances Marshall.
Workshops focus on :
- Posture - Choral Blend - Internal communication within the choral body - Staging, Movement and Presentation
- The physicality of singing (head position, muscular support
