A Golden woman of music and song

With the pandemic forcing a halt to group singing for over two years, the founder and musical director of the Ormond Octaves, Niamh Ryan, is looking forward to a very special Christmas performance by her choir in Saint Mary’s of the Rosary Church in Nenagh on Friday night, December 16.

At last, the church will once again reverberate to familiar Christmas carols and great songs spanning from the last century through the pop era and up to great hits of the modern day.

The melodious sounds of the huge choir of 60 members were zipped for far too long by Covid and now that symphony is about to burst out again in what promises to be an amazing show.

A ‘normal Nenagh Christmas’ resumes for the first time since 2019, which means delightful festive music in the church. The annual Ormond Octaves Charity Christmas Concert has become integral to the way Nenagh people celebrate the advent of this very special time of the year.

One of the lovely aspects of the concert is that, barring overheads, all proceeds raised go to a local charity. The Octaves have donated tens of thousands of euro to worthy causes in the community since the choir was established by Niamh in 2008.

The funds from this year’s event will be presented to the Children’s Grief Centre, which is doing great work here in north Tipperary and indeed right throughout the Mid West counselling children traumatised by tragedies such as bereavement and marriage separation.

Niamh explains that the Children’s Grief Centre was the charity chosen following the untimely death of the Ireland and Munster rugby great Anthony Foley, from Killaloe, in October 2016.

“Near the start of the first lockdown of the pandemic I was watching Anthony’s wife, Olive, on the Late Late Show talking about how the centre had been of tremendous help to her and her two young sons, Tony and Dan, after Anthony died.

“I then contacted Olive and she was delighted when I told her we would present the proceeds of our next Christmas concert to the centre.”

Little did Niamh and everyone in the choir think back then that it was going to be another two years and nine months before they would get the opportunity to again perform in Saint Mary of the Rosary Church. But now, at last, the time has almost come.

PASSION FOR CHOIR

Niamh says she feels privileged to be able to indulge her passion for the choir while raising funds for local worthy causes. “The entire experience for everyone at the concert is a win-win,” she observes. “I Iove the rehearsals and the conducting, the choir loves singing, and the audience always seems to really enjoy the show. So, for the whole lot of us together it’s pure satisfaction on all counts, because all our commitment goes back in euros for charities.”

A native of Golden in West Tipperary, Niamh founded the choir fourteen years ago after moving to live in Toomevara on marrying Willie O’ Brien, a local man, who coincidentially is blessed with a tenor voice as smooth as velvet.

Back then both were teachers at Saint Anne’s Secondary School in Tipperary Town, where Willie performed in shows with the local musical society and Niamh was musical director.

Niamh still teaches in Tipperary, while Willie - whose wonderful solo performances at the annual Nenagh concerts are always a delight - has switched to a life of dairy farming.

Both have been involved in shows with the Nenagh Choral Society in the past, but could no longer give the huge commitment required when their children began to arrive.

“I wanted to continue to be involved in music, but as a new mother I could only give one night a week to rehearsals and setting up a choir just seemed to be the perfect fit, and as a newcomer to the area it was also an ideal way of meeting people,” Niamh reveals.

FINDING A NAME

Niamh says she received great encouragement in the formative years of the choir from the late Editor of this newspaper, Gerry Slevin, who was himself an accomplished singer with a record of distinguished services to choral performance in Ireland.

“Gerry went off on a holiday to Lanzarote for a week and came back with a great name for the choir – ‘The Ormond Octaves’,” Niamh fondly recalls of the man she says offered her “huge support”.

She was only 32 when the choir was formed, and little did she know back then what she was about to take on.

Singers from all over the town and surrounding parishes, as if pent up by an innate need for vocal expression, flocked to her Monday night rehearsals in Nenagh College. Fourteen years on, the choir now has 60 members and is going for strength to strength with each passing year.

With the passage of time, Niamh has maintained a fervent love for the choir, despite the pressing demands of commuting from Toomevara to school in Tipperary every day and caring for her five children, two boys and three girls, ranging in age from 15 to 10, the youngest twins.

REHEARSALS

Rehearsals have been ongoing for months now, and despite the daunting and exhausting effort it all entails, Niamh absolutely loves her role, and her eyes begin to well up when she talks about why.

“I’m going to get emotional now,” she says, her voice starting to quiver on the other end of the telephone, before adding: “The choir kind of feeds the soul!”

The passion with which she delivers that one line statement is moving to experience, because ‘soul’ - real soul - isn't taked about much by people these days.

“The Ormond Octaves is greater than the sum of its parts,” she goes on, still with a lump in her throat and, one suspects, some tears. “Every member brings his or her own little bit to it. But when you put all those bits together it amounts to something much bigger than the sum of its parts.”

On that count Niamh is dead right: The sound in full flow of the four-piece choir, made up of sopranos, altos, basses and tenors, is something that soars way above what the individual alone can achieve. It’s in the realm of metaphysics - as if choir itself possesses a collective soul of its own.

BORN IN TO SINGING

Niamh has music coursing through her veins since the cradle. “Growing up, my parents and my siblings and I were always involved in the local church choir in Golden – my parents still are. I was only 13 when I started playing the church organ,” she reveals. Her passion led her on to do a BA in Music in University College Cork, and still all these years on her love for choral singing fails to diminish. The passion she has for the choir comes back to her in spades from the members who respect and adore her for her loving commitment. The thightest of bonds are evident between the choir and its director, and with a little bit of grace and good fortune, that unity will manifest in the most soulful of sounds on concert night.