Oban Gaelic Choir sing their way to Sardinia

The choir’s conductor Sileas Sinclair said: "What an absolutely amazing opportunity for us all to make new friends, share with them our love of our language and music, and to learn about theirs. 

“Travelling on trips away is also a great chance for our own choir members to get to know each other better. 

“The shared experience between ourselves and our new friends in Sardinia will be one we’ll cherish for a long time to come, I have no doubt, and we’re so grateful to Giovanni and Cantigos in Carrela for inviting us to join them."

The choir will be singing in a variety of venues and after hitting such high-note at the Royal National Mòd in Oban last October, their two winning songs will form part of their festival repertoire. 

Choir member Riona MacCormick has been singing with the choir since 1975 and when festival organisers made contact at the start of this year she was eager to be part of the adventure.

She said: “It all happened quite suddenly, so we haven’t had much time to research, but we just said, right, we’ll go for it.”

With communication from the festival being all in Italian, the choir has now become as well-versed in Google Translate as their sheet music.

“I don’t know how we will fare language wise while we are there,” Riona laughed. “I’ve bought my Italian phrase book.”

In 2016 Oban Gaelic Choir travelled to Verona and in 2019 they visited Tallinn. Riona added: “It’s really wonderful because we had plans to go to different places before Covid, but that was hit on the head by the pandemic.”

The choir hopes to travel more in the future, and on this trip Riona said the choir members are most excited about “seeing the musical culture of Sardinia and meeting new people”.