Mullingar"s musical nursery

Every year, four young musical talents eager to get the best possible start to their careers are lucky enough to be gain entry into St. Finian"s College, Mullingar"s renowned Schola Cantorum (which roughly translates as 'singers" school').Given St. Finian"s central location in Mullingar, the college was chosen as an ideal place to house the Catholic Church"s new music school in 1970.What began as a project designed to educate more lay people in liturgical music has since evolved into a broad-based centre of musical instruction, which continues to produce some of the country"s most promising musicians.Every year, after completing primary school, fifty versatile and talented young music students apply for a music scholarship, which would run alongside their regular school timetable at St. Finian"s. Fewer than a handful are selected out of this collection in what is one of the country"s most competitive application processes.The Schola operates as a miniature music conservatoire within St. Finian"s College. Its establishment by the Catholic Hierarchy is generally accepted to have been a very positive development in liturgical formation across the dioceses.While much debate has taken place about the future of the Church"s role in the school system, the Schola stands as a monument to the positive work which the institution carried out in education. The Schola"s primary aim was to provide high-quality music education within the school system, and to provide the Church with professionally trained musicians, who would enrich the state of Church music.The Schola continues to attract musically gifted children from all corners of the country. 'The initiative was remarkably successful over the past 38 years, and the name of the Schola has indeed become synonymous with all that is excellent in musical standards,' Gerard Lillis, Schola Director, said last week.Mr. Lillis said that Schola graduates have gone on to occupy numerous senior positions in Irish musical life, from third-level institutes to the National Symphony Orchestra to Riverdance, not to mention the organ lofts of lead national churches.With the boarding element at St. Finian"s College phased out in recent years, there have been a number of new and brave undertakings to ensure that the future of the Schola Cantorum is safeguarded at the Mullingar school, which continues to provide a first class musical education for gifted young people, training them especially in the arts related to the musical needs of the modern Church liturgy.Every year, through audition (normally in late January), candidates from all over Ireland compete for one of four new scholarship places available, and the successful applicants receive full post-primary education, complemented by special training in organ, piano, choral work, orchestra, composition and conducting.Other students within the Schola also specialise in instruments such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, cello, trumpet, harp, classical guitar or voice.Each year, the school timetable is arranged so that all of these musical activities can be pursued, without prejudice to the regular school subjects. At the end of their secondary school course, scholarship students are therefore free to choose whichever course they wish.Accommodation grants are in place to safeguard the national dimension for which the Schola has become renowned since 1970, and boys and girls from outside the Mullingar catchment area are accommodated during the school week by host families living near St. Finian"s.Normally, five year scholarships are awarded to students commencing secondary education, but older students are occasionally accepted. At the moment, 22 music students from the dioceses of Meath, Dublin, Kildare and Leighlin, Ossory, Elphin and Ardagh and Clonmacnoise are part of the Schola.During their time there, students at the Schola continue to take examinations in theory, piano, organ, voice, violin, cello, trumpet, flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon with the Associated Board in London, as well as Feis Ceoil performances.Successes over the past academic year at St. Finian"s include three awards in Dublin"s Feis Ceoil school choir competitions, as well as various individual awards in solo or duet competitions in Dublin and Sligo.Knockdrin baritone Emmet Cahill - who sang the national anthem at Croke Park earlier this year - is one particular Schola student with a bright musical future ahead of him, and earlier this year he won the prestigious Paul Deegan Cup for solo baritone singing. Jack Brennan, also from Mullingar, won the Fitzgerald Woodworth Cup for senior organ, and was the runner-up in the Doris Keogh Cup for solo flute performance.Other winners included Eimear Reilly, who won the Sarah Cooper Cup for the Under 18 organ category, with Trim man Fionn Nally in second place. Ronan Whittern won the Dunhallow Cup for solo bassoon, while Paul Kiernan was the runner-up in the solo trumpet competition.Four very talented new students have joined the ranks of the Schola this September, as they embark upon the earlier stages of their formal music education. Three of them are from Westmeath, and sang as choristers for many years in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar; the fourth is from Roscommon, which is in the Diocese of Elphin.This week, Plus met with some of the Schola students at St. Finian"s College.The college building itself is - much like the surrounds of Maynooth College - atmospherically perfect for musical instruction, with the architecture feeling as historic and elevated as the music taught at the Schola.Two of the pre-Leaving Cert students, Jack Brennan (Mullingar) and Peter Manning (Kilcock, Co. Kildare) are multi-talented senior students at the college. Jack, a former pupil of Curraghmore National School, Mullingar, has been playing the organ and flute for five years, and spends his Saturdays at the Royal Irish Academy of Music studying the flute with well known Irish flautist, Bill Dowdall.Peter, a junior organist who"s also a dab hand at the oboe, is concentrating on perfecting his vocal talents, and currently spends Saturdays taking private singing lessons with Dublin-based voice instructor, Mary Brennan. He is preparing for the forthcoming Kitty O"Callaghan Voice Competition at the Feis Ceoil.Both Jack and Peter have it in their minds to study music at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, which has a continental reputation for producing fine musicians.The duo, joined by young violinists Alan Cox (Delvin) and Peter Regan (Roscommon), are also preparing for an ensemble competition at the Feis Ceoil in Dublin in March of next year.For the students lucky enough to become part of the roster at the Schola Cantorum, a wealth of musical knowledge awaits them. A specially dedicated music room on the second floor at St. Finian"s College is where the students receive their musical instruction, co-ordinated by Mr. Lillis, while practical preparations take place in a performance room near the school"s chapel.The college has fine practicing facilities, but is particularly proud of its organ, which the Irish Catholic bishops commissioned from the German organ builders, Hartwig Späth of Freiburg, before presenting it to the Schola in the European Year of Music, 1985.External teachers are regularly brought in to teach students a variety of instruments which they may choose to specialise in, while the school itself can call on the talents of a number of its own internal staff to enhance the Schola"s musical curriculum.The 22 members of the Schola for the 2008/9 academic year are: Dearbhla Murray, Anita O"Brien, Jack Brennan, Zoe Farrell, Harry Hudson-Taylor, Owen Feely, Peter Manning, David Reilly, Eimear Reilly, Aaron Cahill, Heather Fogarty, Mary-Sarah Gavin, Paul Kiernan, Fionn Nally, Billy Gilleran, Joe Murray, Sarah Reilly, Ronan Whittern, Adam Collins, Ciaran Coyne, Alan Cox and Peter Regan.