Twenty-four choristers are to be admitted to St Nicholas Schola Cantorum on December 9, 2012. This will take place during 11am Sunday service in the Collegiate Church of St Nicholas, Galway. At the ceremony the choristers will sing the service and be presented with their robes of cassock, surplice and ruff.
This event marks the first time in for at least 500 years that children will have been formally commissioned to play a role in leading the music of the liturgy. The choristers are aged between 8 and 14, from all denominations and they meet once a week for two hours.
St Nicholas Schola Cantorum, a new initiative mirrors the church’s fifteenth century College of singing priests and boy choristers, but in a new dynamic that reaches out to all the people of Galway.
Under the direction of St Nicholas’ organist and well-known choral specialist Mark Duley, it will provide valuable instruction and rewarding experience to people of all ages, whilst securing the musical future of the church and providing an invaluable musical and educational resource in the parish and wider community.
