Bernie Sherlock

Bernie Sherlock is a leading choral conductor. She is the founder-conductor of the international award-winning chamber choir New Dublin Voices, Artistic Director of the Irish Youth Choirs, and was co-conductor of EuroChoir 2021. Bernie has won international conducting prizes in Finland, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia and Ireland. Her ongoing work as an international adjudicator of choral and conducting competitions and director of choral workshops has taken her around Europe and to the US, Canada and China. She is a founding member of the International Choral Conductors Federation, and a representative for Ireland on the World Choir Council. 

New Dublin Voices has gained critical acclaim for its innovative concert programming and its work in television, radio and recording. It has premiered more than 75 works. The choir has a strong record at Europe’s leading competitions, recently winning first prizes at the Derry International Choir Festival, the Béla Bartók International Choir Competition in Hungary, and the Grand Prix at the 2017 International Baltic Sea Choir Competition in Latvia. Other prizes include coming first at the Cork International Choral Festival (2015), Concoroso Polifonico in Arezzo (Grand Prix 2013), International Choir Contest of Maasmechelen, Belgium (6 prizes 2011) and Budapest International Choir Competition (Grand Prix 2009). In 2017 New Dublin Voices was the first Irish choir invited to perform at the triennial World Symposium on Choral Music.  

Bernie has extensive experience directing a wide range of choirs, including the Culwick Choral Society and the Choral Society of Trinity College Dublin. She is a Lecturer in Music at the TU Dublin Conservatoire where she is conductor of the TU Chamber Choir. For twelve years she directed and taught on the annual Sing Ireland International Choral Conducting Summer School at the University of Limerick.  

Bernie studied choral conducting with Ildiko Herboly-Kocsar and Peter Erdei at the Liszt Academy in Hungary, and orchestral conducting with Gerhard Markson in Dublin. Following her BA in music from Trinity College Dublin, she earned Masters and Doctorate degrees in conducting from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music/DCU respectively.