IYC Artistic Team

Bernie Sherlock is a leading choral conductor. She is founder-conductor of New Dublin Voices, Artistic Director of the Irish Youth Choirs, a former co-conductor of EuroChoir (2021), and a guest conductor with Chamber Choir Ireland. She has won international conducting prizes in Finland, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, Wales, Poland and Ireland. Her work on the adjudication panels of international conducting and choral competitions and directing choral workshops takes her around Europe and to the US, Canada and China.

Under Bernie, New Dublin Voices has gained critical acclaim for its innovative concert programming and its work in television, radio and recording. She takes special pleasure in exploring the music of living composers and has given more than 90 world premieres New Dublin Voices has won multiple prizes and Grand Prix at competitions in France, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Spain, England, Northern Ireland, Slovenia, Latvia, Wales and Bulgaria, including most recently the Grand Prix in Poland at the 13th International Krakow Choir Festival Cracovia Cantans in 2024. In 2023 in Arezzo, Italy, the choir won the Mixed Choir Competition and the Special Prize for programming and performance of
contemporary music.

Bernie has extensive experience directing a wide range of choirs, including the Culwick Choral Society and the Choral Society of Trinity College Dublin. For twelve years she directed and taught on the International Choral Conducting Summer School run by Sing Ireland. She is a
founding Board-member of the World Choral Conducting Network, and a representative for Ireland on the World Choir Council. Bernie lectures at the TU Dublin Conservatoire where she
directs the Masters programme in choral conducting and where she conducts the prize-winning TU Chamber Choir. After her music degree in Trinity College Dublin, Bernie studied conducting for two years in Hungary with Ildikó Herboly-Kocsár and Péter Erdei, followed by Masters and Doctorate degrees in conducting in Dublin.

Patrick Barrett is a conductor specialising in choral music and opera. He is currently
Chorus Director of the RSNO Youth Choruses, the Royal Opera House Youth Opera Company, the Irish Youth Choir (14-17 years), and the award-winning Farnham
Youth Choirs.

Recent highlights include conducting the RSNO Youth Chorus in performances with
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Benjamin Grosvenor, and Nicola Benedetti, as well as
preparing them for the recording of Gaspard’s Christmas by Jonathan Dove. Patrick also led Farnham Youth Choir to two gold medals at the World Choir Games 2024 in New Zealand. He has premièred new works by Errolyn Wallen, Jonathan Brigg, Emma O’Halloran, and DJ R.Kitt, and is a regular guest conductor with the NationalYouth Choirs 9-15 Years.

Patrick’s commitment to youth choral music extends to preparing choruses for the Edinburgh International Festival, and for the Dunedin Consort, where his work often features in major international performances. As a dedicated music educator, Patrick has worked with organisations including The Sixteen, BBC Singers, Wigmore Hall, and Aldeburgh Young Musicians, and has spoken at the Post Primary Music Teachers Association in Ireland.

In opera, Patrick collaborates with leading UK companies such as the Royal Opera
House, English National Opera, and Garsington Opera, where he prepares youth choruses for main stage productions and world premières, including Carmen under Antonello Manacorda and Otello under Sir Antonio Pappano. Previously, he was the conductor of the University of Birmingham’s Upper Voices Choir, University of Reading Chamber Choir and Brockham Choral Society.