Youth Opera Ireland
Engaging Young Minds with Opera
Youth Opera Ireland is dedicated to creating operas that seamlessly blend music, storytelling, and visual arts. Through our performances, we aim to captivate young audiences, inviting them to actively participate in the artistic journey. Using live and interactive opera, we seek to provoke thought, evoke emotions, and spark conversations about culture, identity, and the human connection.
Mission
Empowering Young Voices Through Opera
At Youth Opera Ireland, our mission is to make opera accessible and enjoyable for young people. Through collaborative, imaginative productions, we encourage creativity and emotional connection, fostering a lifelong love of the art form.
Dedicated to pushing creative boundaries and crafting memorable experiences, we strive to inspire a new wave of storytelling that blurs the lines between traditional opera and modern visual design.
Meet the Team
Our dedicated team brings together a diverse range of talents and experiences to create unforgettable operatic productions.
Naoise Whearity
Artistic Director
Naoise is a Dublin-based conductor and music educator. She is Choral Director at Rathdown School and conducts at Royal Irish Academy of Music. She has worked with the National Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir Ireland. In 2025, she won First Prize and the Singers Prize at the Feis Ceoil Choral Conducting Competition and appeared as a guest conductor with Vancouver Chamber Choir in Canada and Finland.
Ciarán Kelly
Artistic Director
Ciarán is conductor of Cór Linn (National Symphony Orchestra, National Concert Hall), Head of Music at King’s Hospital School, and an active professional singer. Recent work includes a new 20-minute choral commission for young voices with strings and piano for New Music Dublin; partnerships with Syng Selected and the Danish National Youth Choir; and performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor.