The Choral Scholars Of University College Dublin Release Their Second Signum Album, Out March 1

The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin, under the artistic direction of Desmond Earley, is Ireland's leading collegiate choral ensemble.The Choral Scholars' second recording on the Signum label, entitled Perpetual Twilight, will be released on March 1st. The album features a program of new choral music inspired by the evocative imagery of the natural world in traditional Irish and Scottish folksong and poetry. The disc includes world-premiere recordings of new works and arrangements commissioned by the choir.

Perpetual Twilight is the follow-up to the ensemble's bestselling 2016 debut Invisible Stars, their album of Irish and Scottish choral music. With over 1.5 million streams on Spotify, Invisible Stars was one of the most successful choral releases of 2016. The video of Mo Ghille Mear (My Gallant Hero) has been viewed over 6.6 Million times.

The Scholars will celebrate their 20th anniversary and the release of the new recording with a performance at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City on March 15th. Entitled Imagine Ireland: Songs of Home, the Carnegie program - timed to coincide with St. Patrick's Day - showcases world premiere compositions as well as new arrangements of classics such as "Danny Boy," "My Love is like a Red Red Rose," and "Mo Ghille Mear (My Gallant Hero)." The choir will be joined by a host of Ireland's leading instrumentalists, from bodhrán to harp to clarinet.

"Song is central to the Irish musical imagination," Earley recently told public radio's New Classical Tracks. "And a glimpse at Irish history would reveal a whole catalog of songs exploring themes of loss, happiness, emigration, lamenting." In Gramophone, Earley went on to say, "It is not difficult to see why song is so important (perhaps now more than ever) to Irish culture and the Irish musical imagination: song is about identity, relating back to our shared history, and it is about the future."

Since its founding in 1999, the choir has maintained strong links with its family of over two hundred alumni. With a focus and inspiration found in the music and literature of Ireland, the ensemble's song collection ranges from contemporary choral music to the re-imagining of Irish traditional music.