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are generally two three-hour sessions per day. You the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Op-
could have three sessions if you wanted, but you have era of New York. He has recorded many UK choral
to pace it so that the singers are not burnt out by the groups as well. In the past he has commented that we
next day. have a warm, open sound that’s quintessentially Irish.
The whole experience is great for the students, as He truly cares about our sound.
they’re learning from the professionals. They’re listen- Add our producer, Nick Parker. I mean, these two
ing and collaborating with the engineer, the producer, guys are like recording royalty, you know? Nick Parker
with me. They get to hear the ques-
tions from the professionals and watch
the action in real time. They seem to
value the experience.

Scheibe: Watching your students
work with the pros, as you said, and
not only the instrumental pros, but a
few of the choral singers in the en-
semble as well, was quite wonderful. A
number of your students in the session
were off-book, and so it was terrific
to watch and observe their “buy-in,”
if you will, to this entire process and
project. And, it seemed to me that
you’re offering students a window into
the professional world of choral music,
which is much more difficult, I would
think, in Ireland than it is in the States.
In many cases in the States, we’re try- Rehearsing in Blackrock College Chapel.
ing to establish a choral professional
where you walk in and do a concert maybe in Penn- has produced I’d venture over a thousand albums. Re-
sylvania, and then you go to Texas, and then you go to cording is in his DNA, as his father worked for EMI,
San Diego. This seemed to me like a great experience etc. Nick once told me that the Beatles sang him “Hap-
for a choral singer at the university level in Dublin to py Birthday” when he was four years old in Abbey
reflect and see what they might do when they walk out Road Studios! I love Nick’s approach: like me, he’s into
of university. an organic sound and wants to hear that the music has
I also enjoyed watching Nick Parker and Andrew been internalized and is being emoted. He also strives
Mellor, the producer and the engineer, who were pos- to make as few edits as possible.
itive when they spoke to you, the students, and when
they spoke to the instrumentalists. It became a symbiot- Scheibe: I want to discuss the recording space. I loved
ic relationship, and the students understood that. Have the space where you recorded the album in Blackrock
you recorded albums with Nick and Andrew before? College Chapel.

Earley: Every single Signum Classics album I have re- Earley: The Blackrock College Chapel is small. It is
corded was with Andrew Mellor, so that amounts to narrow, so it should probably come with a warning sign
more than a decade of working together. We have a for an acoustician. It is extremely beautiful for unac-
great relationship. He is also the sound engineer for companied repertoire, but it becomes more challeng-

CHORAL JOURNAL May 2026 Volume 66 Number 8 17