National youth choir facing closure due to funding cut

Northern Ireland’s only national youth choir faces closure due to a funding cut from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

The choir’s artistic director Andrew Nunn said it would leave Northern Ireland as the only part of the UK and Ireland without a national youth choir.

Choir member, 19-year-old Amy Patton from Belfast, said she was struggling to come to terms with the news.

“It really makes me angry if I’m honest with you because why would you be stealing something from young people that it means so much to?” she told BBC News NI.

Her fellow choir member, 23-year-old Ciara Naomh Kennedy from west Belfast, had similar feelings.

“I was so upset when I heard the news, completely shocked, really upset,” she said.

“We’re going to be the only part of the UK and Ireland without a choir on that level.”

Founded in 1999, the choir has been singing for more than a quarter of century.

Young people can join the junior choir from the age of 11, and then progress up to sing with the senior choir until they are 24.

According to the choir’s artistic director Andrew Nunn, thousands of young singers have been involved with the choir since it began.

“The organisation has huge scale and reach,” he said.

“Outreach is really important to us, so we go round all parts of Northern Ireland.

“I was up in Derry, Dungannon, Belfast of course, up in Ballymoney delivering school workshops.

“I think I did something like 54 workshops last year across the secondary schools and the primary schools.”

Pupils can then audition to join one of five choirs, which involves extra tuition, rehearsals and performances.

“We’re seeing more than 2,000 people every single year, and in our choirs this year we’ve had 360 students at the highest level,” Andrew Nunn said.

The senior choir is rehearsing for a performance at Fisherwick Presbyterian Church in Belfast on Saturday.

But it could be its last concert.

The choir received £60,797 in annual funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) in 2024-25.

But it was unsuccessful in its bid for funding in 2025-26, which is likely to mean the end of the choir.

Ms Kennedy said she had been singing with the choir for almost a decade, having joined when she was a pupil at St Genevieve’s High School.

“I just loved it, absolutely loved it, so I’ve just stuck around ever since,” she said.

“The standard that we’re singing at, there’s just nothing else really like it in the country.”

“It was my first experience singing in a full male and female choir and it just completely changed everything for me,” she said.

“There’s just going to be so many young people like me in west Belfast who now won’t get the opportunity to have a chance to sing in choirs at this level, at this standard.”

Ms Kennedy said the cross-community make-up of the choir was also important, a view shared by 23-year-old Daniel Stewart from Belfast, who has been in the choir for six years.

“I had a lot of anxiety when it came to performing on a stage with a choir,” he said.

“Since then, I’ve just been able to grow in my confidence, my music ability.

“The experience as a whole is something I’ll never forget, I’ll carry with me my entire life.”

Amy Patton, who joined the junior youth choir when she was 11, said she had gained lots of confidence in her musicianship and singing.

Her experience in the choir also helped her gain a place at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester after she left school in east Belfast.

“It has genuinely just been one of the biggest blessings of my life to be able to be in this choir,” she said.

“It saddens me so deeply that other young people will not get the opportunity to have the same chances that I did here.”

BBC News NI contacted the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for comment.

In a statement they said that the National Youth Choir of Northern Ireland (NYCNI) did not receive funding from the Arts Council’s 25-26 Annual Funding Programme.

“The decision not to fund the NYCNI this year was based on the assessment of the application against the programme criteria.

“The Arts Council cannot disclose specific information about the rejection of any application without explicit permission to do so from the rejected applicant.”

Mr Nunn appealed to the organisation “to come to the table and work with the organisation to try and make sure that this amazing power of work that we do, the amazing artistic result that we produce, that continues.”