DUBAI — A world-renowned Irish conductor, dozens of musicians, four soloists and local schoolchildren, along with staff and volunteers from different Expo pavilions – hailing from 150 nationalities – staged a unique musical event at Expo 2020’s Jubilee Stage on Thursday.
Energetic members of the audience joined members of the choir who were standing below the stage in green shirts, to sing accompanying melodies, their clapping becoming like percussion instruments, while a group of children danced closer to the stage.
Cheers rang through Jubilee Park as conductor David Brophy read out the names of all 146 countries that applied to be part of this project. Firm favourites with Expo 2020 visitors were Irish singer Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares to You’, and U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. The choir also performed beautiful renditions of other popular songs including Van Morrison’s classic, ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ and the soulful Josh Groban’s ‘You Raise Me Up’.
“This experience is like no other,” said Brophy after the rehearsal earlier on Thursday. “I’ve never done anything like this in my life…This is the interesting part – this performance, this concept, this idea of bringing people together to sing is a mystery to me. All I know is that singing is one of the central things we do on the planet together.”
A total of 31 Irish musicians were flown in for the project, initiated by the Ireland Pavilion, to perform with the mixed choir for the very first time. The concert featured traditional Irish instruments, such as the harp, fiddle, uilleann pipes and tin whistle.
Speaking about the uniqueness of the project, Brophy said: “I have a big leap of faith in the people. Obviously, there are singers I’ve never met before, and they don’t know each other. But once you start singing, people want to sing along with you. That’s what it’s like, and we meet each other and find connections very quickly when we sing.”