A new work for orchestra and chorus by Ian Wilson is to get its first public performance in Wexford in June.

Harbouring is a substantial 50-minute-long work in nine movements commissioned to mark a decade of investment in choral music by Wexford County Council and has been funded through the Per Cent For Art programme.

The performances, on Thursday 5 June and Friday 6 June, in Whites Hotel, Abbey Street, Wexford, will feature local and national performers and include the Irish Chamber Orchestra, accordion player Dermot Dunne and more than 100 vocalists from Wexford Festival Singers, Gorey Choral Group and Enniscorthy Musical Society as well as sean nós singers from the Whisht Traditional Irish singing group. Conductor Fergus Sheil describes the work as 'ambitious by any standards'.

Harbouring uses poems by nine Irish and international writers all of which have the subject of harbour in common for each of its movements and Wilson says he has aimed in the piece 'to write choral music which is at the same time modern and accessible, challenging to a degree yet rewarding to sing'.

For details, please see our calendar or visit www.wexford.ie/arts.

Posted: 16 May 2008