INSTAGRAM unveils her as a "crazy choir director" – a light-hearted epithet that still has Marie Lacey hooting with laughter and declaring herself "crazier" than ever in these busy, post-pandemic days when everyone, it seems, wants to book a joyful encounter with her Belfast Community Gospel Choir.
"I think I am now worse; I get madder and madder," chuckles the irrepressible Dundonald-based founder and director of BCGC who also goes under the affectionate, unofficial title of 'Choir Mama' by around 130 devoted members.
"And the older I get, the less I care about how mad I actually am. I think it plays out in our concerts because the banter between me and our audiences is unreal," she laughs.
"I think I might be transitioning into May McFettridge... maybe soon I will be turning up at concerts in a wee woolly hat."
Comic turns aside, the exuberant grandmother (66) has recently returned to her Gospel roots, releasing a new album, Legacy, which features much-loved, forgotten songs from her childhood; songs she felt compelled to share with a new audience – in particular, her two young grandsons.
Described as a "love letter" to Alex (five) and Jacob (two), the new album – her first solo release in over a decade – has been produced with the help of long-time collaborator Sean Fitzpatrick and features the talents of Arco String Quartet.
In it, Lacey breathes new life into eight classic tunes, including The Old Rugged Cross, Softly and Tenderly and Just a Closer Walk With Thee.
"These were the songs my mother, the Gospel singer Margaret Leebody, would sing, so the album is a nostalgic reminder of my childhood," affirms Lacey who remembers "travelling around the country" with her mother on Sunday nights to various singing engagements at churches and Gospel halls.
"During lockdown, when we were all listening to different types of music, I was reminded again of these songs and it occurred to me that my wee grandsons – who never knew their great grandmother – won't hear them, as they aren't sung so much today, yet they are part of their heritage, part of their history," she says.
"I wanted to share my faith with them and at the same time keep this music alive – albeit with new arrangements and some new rhythms to appeal to a new generation of music lovers.
"I suppose, in many ways, the album is like my autobiography in song and it certainly felt like a nostalgic walk down memory lane, recording them."
It started out purely as a personal project during the summer break from BCGC, but feedback from friends who spoke of having their own childhood memories evoked and from enchanted choir members themselves began to make her think differently.
"The choir heard some of the songs when I presented a couple of them at our annual Waterfront Hall Christmas Show and they were instant hits," Lacey enthuses.
"Many of our younger singers had never even heard of Jim Reeves – seriously... – and, for them, it was like listening to something that Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald might have sung. I think, though, that these are songs that reach to people in all kinds of ways.
"In my young days, I can remember all the drunk men rolling out of the pubs singing, The Old Rugged Cross, and also a neighbour of ours known as 'Old Joe', who wasn't a churchgoer or anything, coming home every weekend and standing in the middle of the street serenading the entire block of houses with that song. It is a song that seems to appeal whether or not you attend church or have a faith."
In her own case, Lacey's faith continues to be her anchor and is "at the core" of everything she does, although when BCGC launched in 2009, she was careful to ensure the repertoire covered different musical genres and attracted vocalists from all faiths and none.
That diversity and all-inclusive ethos have remained at the centre since early first auditions (still closed due to the current large membership) which attracted "Beyonce-type voices", leather-clad bikers, retirees, unemployed youth and young professionals from across cultural and religious divides.
Since then, there have been high-profile concerts at home and abroad – in 2014 Lacey fulfilled her dream of performing in "the land that gave us Gospel" by bringing her choir on tour to the US where a number of stop-offs included a performance in an African-American church in Harlem, flash mob events, CD launches and, more recently, a coveted spot in the finals of BBC's Songs of Praise 'Gospel Choir of the Year' competition.
It all started with a love of reality TV show, Last Choir Standing, and then a visit to London for a workshop with Bazil Meade, director of the London Community Gospel Choir, who offered tips on how to get a community Gospel choir up and running in Belfast.
"My passion was truly ignited after that," says Lacey, who in a pre-choir life worked in youth initiatives in Poleglass, west Belfast, and also held down various office jobs, invariably secretarial or personal assistant posts. "I thought that every other major region seemed to have a unifying Gospel choir, so why shouldn't Belfast?"
"I grew up listening to my mother sing, I grew up in teen choirs and I was enjoying being senior worship leader at Christian Fellowship Church in east Belfast, so I knew about the joy that singing brings – and that is what it is all about, really," she explains.
"The BCGC diary is always full – there is a huge demand for the choir because wherever we go to sing, we bring in the ambience of joy and it changes the room. Joy changes people's lives."
A tiny seed had been planted several years earlier, though, when Lacey was tasked by former secretary of State, the late Mo Mowlam, and the Northern Ireland Office with helping to stage the cross-community Northern Ireland interdenominational millennium service at the Waterfront Hall.
"It took nine years, but I thought I could do something with that Millennium experience," she recalls. "Also, when the choir formed, I think it was at the right time because it tapped into the new Northern Ireland; a place where the political and social landscape was changing and where the atmosphere lent itself to a musical interpretation of the uplifting mood."
With that in mind, is there an invitation on its way for BCGC to sing for President Joe Biden during his visit to Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the the Good Friday Agreement?
Not, as yet, she assures me, but typically, Lacey has not given up hope. "I'm still waiting by the phone," she jests.
"Seriously, though, If they want to present something that was born out of the Good Friday Agreement and that has been a huge success, they need to look no further than Belfast Community Gospel Choir."
:: Marie Lacey's album Legacy is available to purchase at bcgc.biz/shop and is also streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. Belfast Community Gospel Choir's annual spring concert, Joy! Joy! Joy!, takes place at the Ulster Hall in Belfast on May 21 – some tickets still available at waterfront.co.uk
