The Various Voices Festival launches a full programme of song

Various Voices 2 -full choir

June of this year will see the Various Voices festival touch down in Dublin for four days of concerts and workshops around the city.

Various Voices is the international gay choral festival, a floating event which takes place in a different city every time. The festival has been on-going since the 1980s and this is its first time in Ireland.

This Thursday, March 20th, will see the official launch of the 2014 programme, at 6:30pm in the Mansion House. The launch will be presided over by Lord Mayor Oisín Quinn.

NewsFour caught up with Ian Doyle, the Festival Director, who gave us the lowdown on some of the upcoming highlights, and who is behind it all.

The festival proper will run from June 13th to June 16th, with many events taking place in DCU and the Helix Theatre. A particular highlight promises to be The Big Gay Sing with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and GLORIA DLGC, the Gloria Dublin Lesbian and Gay Chorus. This concert will take place at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre on Sunday 15th. Tickets are available via the website (www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie ). All proceeds go towards Marriage Equality.

GLORIA DLGC are the body behind the hosting of Various Voices 2014, which they point out will be the largest LGBT event ever held in Ireland: Over 80 choirs will be participating and 2400 singers will raise their voices over the four days of the festival’s duration. This represents the culmination of many years work for the Gloria personnel, who first submitted Dublin as a host city in 2010. Performing acts such as The UV Rays, the Dublin Gay Men’s Chorus, the Canberra Gay and Lesbian Qwire, Pink Noise, Homomannenkoor Zangzaad and the Deep C Divas will be putting on shows and sharing the billing with one another (rehearsals in the morning, shows in the evening is the rhythm).

Check out the launch if choral arrangements are your thing and keep an eye on variousvoices.ie for the full programme and more information, or go to gloria.ie

By Rúairí Conneely