Bernie Sherlock was appointed Musical Director of the Culwick Choral Society in 2007. She is also the conductor of New Dublin Voices which she founded in 2005. She received her training in choral conducting during two years of study at the Kodály Intézet in Hungary where her teachers were Peter Erdei and Ildikó Herboly Kocsár. She subsequently continued her studies with Gerhard Markson and earned a Master's in Musicology and Performance (Conducting) from NUI Maynooth.
Bernie has extensive experience directing a wide range of choirs. For ten years, she was the Choral Director at the DIT Conservatory of Music & Drama, during which time she led the DIT Chamber Choir to several first prizes, as well as awards for individual works, at the Cork International Choral Festival, and she won Feis Ceoil's Culwick Cup for chamber choirs seven times in nine years. Under Bernie's direction the choir was the first ensemble at the DIT Conservatory to record a CD when Carols for Christmas was released to great acclaim in December 2000. She also conducted the larger DIT Choral Society, which performed much of the mainstream oratorio repertoire in concerts at the NCH and other leading venues in Dublin, Waterford and Galway, accompanied by the Orchestra of St Cecilia among other orchestras.
Bernie is a Lecturer in Music at the DIT Conservatory and an honours music graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, where she lectures in the School of Music, and was Conductor of the University of Dublin Choral Society from 1999 to 2008. Under Bernie's direction, the choir released its first CD, a recording of Under No Circumstances by the late Brian Boydell. In another first, in April 2006 Bernie was the first conductor to bring the UDCS to the National Concert Hall, where it performed to a full house.
Bernie's chamber choir, New Dublin Voices, has presented concerts in major Irish venues, has given a number of Irish and world premières, and has been a regular participant in competitions. NDV has given the Irish premières of several contemporary pieces, and in January of 2008 gave the world premières of six leading-edge works in an exciting collaboration with the composers of the Dublin-based Spatial Music Collective. Bernie has led NDV to various awards including National Choir of the Year in Navan 2006 and 2008, National Choir of the Festival in Cork 2006 (and three other awards), both mixed-choir competitions at Feis Ceoil in 2006, 2007 and 2008, the Schutz Trophy in the Fleischmann International Competition in Cork 2007, three first-prizes in Navan 2007, and three first-prizes at the 2008 Bangor International Choral Festival.
Bernie founded the Kodály Society of Ireland (KSI) in 1993 and was Director of the KSI International Music Course from 1993 to 1998. She is in demand as an adjudicator at choral competitions around Ireland. She has taught on conducting courses for the Association of Irish Choirs (AOIC), the Department of Education and Science, the DIT Conservatory of Music & Drama, and the KSI, and has given workshops in a wide variety of subjects for different organizations. She was appointed Artistic Director of the AOIC's annual Conducting Summer School in 2008.