Irish composer and choral director Michael McGlynn formed the chamber choir Anúna in Dublin in 1987 with the intent that it would unite the discipline of classical choral singing with the unaffected spontaneity typical of Irish folksinging. Until 1991 the group was named An Uaithne, which comes from the collective term for three types of traditional Irish song: lullaby, happy song, and lament. Its earliest repertoire was made up primarily of music from the 11th through the 16th centuries, but it has broadened considerably to include traditional songs of Irish, English, Welsh, ...