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Tallaght Choral Society (TCS) was formed in 1967, when Tallaght was still a small village at the foot of the Dublin mountains. A group of singers came together under the direction of Fr. Donal Sweeney OP to form a church choir based in the Dominican Priory. Under a succession of music directors, the small church choir gradually took on the mantle of a choral society and now has a membership of over 100. The current music director Mark Armstrong was appointed in 2002 and under his baton the society has continued to flourish and now has a reputation as one of Ireland’s strongest choral societies. 2007 was the 40th anniversary of TCS and it still includes a number of the original choir, including its founder, Fr. Donal Sweeney, among its members. Tallaght Choral Society has participated in many RTE productions and its successful collaborations have included works with the National Symphony Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra, the R.I.A.M orchestra, Belfast Philharmonic Choir and Liverpool Welsh Choral Union. As part of its 40th birthday celebrations, TCS was part of a 500 strong choir performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ with the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Gerhard Markson. Its most recent performances included Gounad’s Messe St Cecile, Rutter’s Magnificat and a most enjoyable participation in the International Advent Festival in Vienna . The upcoming performance is in Mount Argus Church, Harold’s Cross, Dublin at 8.00 p.m. on Sunday 10th May. The concert features Fauré’s Requiem and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria. The same pieces will be performed the following Saturday 16 May at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Rowe Street, Wexford. With experienced guest soloists and Alan Smale of the RTE NSO leading the orchestra, the concert promises to be a memorable evening. Fauré’s Requiem is one of the best loved choral works and lacks the predominantly fearful or mournful tone of the traditional Requiem Mass. In a 1902 interview, Fauré observed: “It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience. …. As to my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different.” Giacomo Puccini composed the Messa di Gloria at the age of 18 as his graduation exercise from the Istituto Musicale Pacini. It had its first performance in Lucca in 1880, and although well received at the time, it was not performed again until 1952 (first in Chicago and then in Naples). Unlike the church music of the late 1800's the Puccini mass shows many characteristics of opera, full of solemnity and depth of expression.