22 December 2023
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
The ‘Lord Mayor’s Tea Dance’, City Hall, Cork Sunday 28th January 2024 3.00pm-5.30pm Evelyn Grant and the Cork Pops Orchestra Keith Hanley
The ‘Lord Mayor’s Tea Dance’ Hosted by the Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr. Kieran McCarthy City Hall, Cork – Sunday 28th January 2024 – 3.00pm-5.30pm
Evelyn Grant and the Cork Pops Orchestra – Keith Hanley Voice of Ireland – Tickets €10 Pro Musica Oliver Plunkett St., Cork
A January ‘Gathering’ of young and old, from communities all over Cork and beyond who love to dance, will take to the floor in City Hall, to the music of Evelyn Grant and the Cork Pops Orchestra.
The Lord Mayor’s Tea Dance is a not-for-profit initiative organised by a local committee of people from the public, private and voluntary sectors and in conjunction with the Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Kieran McCarthy. The committee is chaired by Dr. Andrew Crosbie.
The orchestra will be joined by soloists Keith Hanley Voice of Ireland.
Young people are invited to bring an older person or a group of older people to the ‘Ball’.
Previous Tea Dances have proven to be great fun and the need for these events is greater now than ever before. These dances recognise the role of a previous generation and offer a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge this contribution.
We are inviting ‘The Young at Heart’ of the nation to use the ‘free travel’ to come to Cork for the ‘craic’. We hope by publicising this event nationwide that local groups in cities towns and villages throughout the country will repeat this initiative.
Entertainment is provided by the Cork Pops Orchestra conducted by Evelyn Grant and we expect some of our dancers to out-dance ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.
Tickets €10 are now on sale in Pro Music Oliver Plunkett St. Cork.
The Cork Pops Orchestra will perform a selection of up-tempo and ‘smoochy’ numbers. Dancers can enjoy a range of music from Johann Strauss to Abba and demonstrate their dancing skills in waltzes, tangos, two-steps, swing dancing and a bit of rock ‘n’ roll. The Cork Pops Orchestra’s Tea Dances were devised by Gerry Kelly and grew from the successful Millennium Tea Dance project for ‘The Young at Heart’, which took place in Cork City and County. The Cork Pops Orchestra – www.corkpops.ie – has evolved as Ireland’s only Community Orchestra providing an educational and entertainment service to the public and private sector. Large-scale projects that the orchestra has been involved in include the annual UCC Strauss Ball, the annual Doc Noonan Ball, “The Tall Ships” visit to Cork, the Tour de France, the Port of Cork Maritime Festival, an annual winter concert series for schools in City Hall and Tea Dances for ‘The Young at Heart’.
The Cork Pops Orchestra runs a mentoring programme for students and emerging young professionals in music performance, multimedia and community music.
Photo L to R Gerry Kelly, Cork Pops Orchestra, Evelyn Grant RTÉ lyric fm, Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr. Kieran Mc Carthy, Oisín Hennessey HSE