Standing ovation for Sue’s amazing music
WEXFORD composer Sue Furlong received a standing ovation from the large crowd at her concert ‘Amazing Grace’, a celebration of her stunning music that was showcased as a choral performance in Rowe Street Church recently.
Musicians from across Wexford and the southeast performed special selections of Sue’s music and culminated with the premier of her inspiring arrangement of Amazing Grace.
Committee member Michelle Roche said: ‘ The one thing that people are commenting on since the concert is the sense of community it created and the quality of the musicians and singers invoved. All but a couple of the singers and musicians involved, 150 to be exact, live and work in Wexford.’
MC Alan Corcoran introduced the opening piece ‘Come the Sails’ which was commissioned by the Waterford Tall Ships Festival. Poet John Ennis wrote the lyrics while Sue composed music to put to the words.
Liam Bates led the night as musical director and conductor which was the first time that Wexford hosted a full concert showcasing the diversity of Sue’s compositions.
Soloists and performers on the night included Éabha Carty, Tony Carty, Eithne Corrigan, Aileen Donoghue, Róisín Dempsey, Patricia Goggins, Eadaoin Lawlor, Karen Lynott, Beth McNinch, Liz Murphy and Ann Wickham.
The concert also featured Carlow Children’s Choir ‘Aspiro’, County Wexford School of Music Singers, Valda, Vocaré and Wexford School of Ballet and Performing Arts.
While Sue is originally from Waterford, she has been based in Wexford for 30 years and started composing as a teenager with her earliest pieces focused on sacred music. But it was really in the 1990s that her composing career really took off.
‘ The Dancing Master’, a children’s choral cantata composed to commemorate the Rebellion of 1798, began Sue’s extensive career in composition for children and several pieces from this work were featured in the concert.
In 2007 Sue founded a choral group called Vocaré which went on to become a multi award-winning choir, earning them an invitation to perform in Carnegie Hall.
Michelle Roche said: ‘Considering that this concert was born of a small idea with Joanne Powell, Lizzie Gibbon, Leanne Sheridan, Karen Lynott along with myself to record Sue’s arrangement of Amazing Grace, the last piece on the programme and the concert title, it’s just wonderful what it turned into with some vision and a bit of hard graft from everyone involved.’