September 2022
Community Choir Leadership Course Autumn 2022
Community Choir Leadership Course
Led by Candy Verney
27th Sept to 5th Oct
"Tranformational. This course, this environment, the land, Candy’s style of deep listening and ability to create a safe container for vulnerability has helped me recognize my own fears that hold me back from living my full creative potential. The wealth of Candy’s experience coupled with her sensitivity to the group made it easy to experiment with teaching styles amd let me feel comfortable to try thing out and make mistakes." Fran Haverfordwest Wales April 2022
This course will give you skills to run singing workshops in a wide variety of community settings. But singing in this way, opens the heart, and for many, leads them also on a transformational journey.
It is a hands-on, practical course which includes philosophy, theory and lively discussion where appropriate. There are no entry requirements and you don’t need to be able to read music. However it will be most useful to people who have had experience in some areas of music: singing in choirs, but also teaching or other musical settings. All musical experience is helpful.
Find out more »October 2022
Belonging – a Journey of Enquiry
In an ever shifting world, what are we belonging ourselves to?
With Jenny O'Hare and Niall Graham
14th - 16th October 2022
As humans, we have a deep desire to belong; be that to place, to a people, or simply to ourselves. Much of what has traditionally offered us this belonging is now shifting rapidly. In such a landscape, how is it that we can root ourselves in lives of meaning?
You are invited to a deeply experiential weekend in which we will explore the thread of Belonging through relationship to self, place, community and culture.
Find out more »Solas Dreamtime Retreat
An immersive weekend of poetry, landscape & stories in the heart of the Donegal Gaeltacht
With Annemarie Ní Churreáin
This event has now reached full capacity. We are looking into running the event again depending on interest. If you are interested and would like to be put on a waiting list for this, or if you would like to be put on a reserve list for this retreat (in the event a participant has to cancel) please contact info@thesonghouseireland.com with your details.
Due to the success and high demand of the February Solas retreat we are running this event for a second time this year. We anticipate this will sell out so and book your place early to avoid disappointment.
21st - 23rd October 2022
Following the sold-out success of the first Solas Writing Retreat Weekend led by Donegal poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin, The Song House is delighted to present a second retreat for writers of poetry at all levels. This retreat will offer poets a space to explore, reflect, share and(re)connect with your creative voice in the lap of Errigal & Muckish Mountain, and among the echoes and shadows of Lugh Lámfada and other mythological ghosts.
Unfolding over two nights and three days, and led by Annemarie Ní Churreáin, the programme will feature poetry workshops, readings and one-to-one feedback sessions. ‘Dreamtime’ is the theme for this weekend and poets are invited to submit a poem in advance of the weekend for group editing over the course of the weekend.
Find out more »November 2022
Lost Rites and the Community of Grief
Remembering the Way
With Death Doula Alexandra Derwen and apprentice Death Doula Tanya Bryan
The premise of the “community of grief” is that Grief itself is a force for community cohesion and repair; whatever our personal stories of loss it is in the shared circle space that the potential for alchemy and amplification of the healing process takes place. If you feel moved and called to this work then you belong there; we do ask that people come with open hearts ready to participate with curiosity and courage; but most importantly just bring your broken human selves and the circle itself will hold you.
Find out more »March 2023
Community Choir Leadership Course
Community Choir Leadership Course
Led by Candy Verney
23rd to 31st March 2023
"I adored every single bit. It soothed and comforted and pushed and challenged. It took me to the heart of my fears and out the other side. There was nothing I couldn’t use. The protective loving atmosphere you and Robin create is utterly unique and has held us so safe, allowing us to go to… and through… and past dangerous territory. Thank you for giving us so much of yourselves." Jessie from Ceridigion, Wales April 2022
This course will give you skills to run singing workshops in a wide variety of community settings. But singing in this way, opens the heart, and for many, leads them also on a transformational journey.
It is a hands-on, practical course which includes philosophy, theory and lively discussion where appropriate. There are no entry requirements and you don’t need to be able to read music. However it will be most useful to people who have had experience in some areas of music: singing in choirs, but also teaching or other musical settings. All musical experience is helpful.
Find out more »June 2023
Voice & Choral Feast on the Wild Atlantic Way
A week of immersive choral singing and voice work, surrounded by mountains and the Wild Atlantic Way – for singers with some experience of singing in choirs
Friday 30th June – Friday 7th July 2023
With Candy Verney and Sophie Grimmer
Would you like to develop your voice further?
Have you sung in choirs for a while, and now you feel the need to deepen the quality of the sound?
Would you like to sing more challenging repertoire?
Would you like to immerse yourself in the beauty of the human voice, and have fun too?
This promises to be a very stimulating and restorative course, with a high professional input from both teachers. Candy’s background is in community choir leadership. Sophie’s background is in opera performance, singing teaching and voice pedagogy research. Between us we can draw on extensive experience in diverse complementary fields to offer an immersive week of choral music and personal voice work
Over the week, our own little community will build, sharing profound musical experiences and challenges, seeding new friendships, exploring the natural vibrant beauty surrounding us. So if you want to challenge your singing self, have a sense of adventure, meeting other interesting folk and returning home feeling refreshed, invigorated and in tune, then join us here.