GALS members getting ready for the Dublin trip Singers from Auckland and Wellington are among the 2,500 from all over the world converging on Dublin for the Various Voices glbti choral festival. Glória, Dublin's Lesbian and Gay Choir, will host around 80 choirs from across the globe at the event, which starts on Thursday and coincides with Dublin Pride. A contingent of 23 singers and one conductor from Auckland’s Gay and Lesbian Singers, and members of Wellington’s Glamaphones, will be among the hordes. Globetrotting Auckland couple Lindsay Curnow and Juliet Leigh are once again combining their love of music and love of travel to join be part of GALS’ Dublin crew. “I think because it was Dublin it hit a lot of people’s fancy,” Curnow says. “Many people have got rellies and friends across in Britain and it’s an interesting place which just caught everyone’s imagination. That’s why we’ve got so many going, it’s cool, we’ll be able to sing as a choir.” The historic Dublin Castle Among the various events, the lucky Kiwis have been picked to sing at the historic Dublin Castle. “We’re singing on the Sunday afternoon in, they call it the Rotunda Hall, it is absolutely stunning,” Curnow says. “It is a rotunda and it’s as old as hell and it’s got marble columns and statues. It just looks stunning. And apparently it’s where they greet all the heads of state and important people to the city, so that’s quite awesome.” GALS’ will take a New Zealand flavour to Ireland, through their music selection. They will also wear colours of the Pacific and even to a tiny bit of poi at the end of their performance. Curnow and Leigh have been to a few of these types of mass gay choir events now and Curnow says the experience is “quite heady”. The couple likes to make the festivals part of holidays, and will be away holiday till mid-August. “We’re going up to Northern Ireland. My mum was actually born up in Northern Ireland and I haven’t been to the north, so we’re going to spend a bit of time there and then go to Cornwall and meet some friends, then go to the Netherlands and Germany,” Curnow says.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 10th June 2014 - 8:33am