Irish Times Notes03 Jun 23

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

Waterford Organ Festival

The third annual Waterford International Organ Festival will begin on Thursday in Christ Church cathedral and continue until the following Sunday. The Festival  will present diverse, creative classical music concerts featuring the pipe organ, choral and instrumental forces.

The Festival will open with an evening of chamber music with Kilkenny–based organist Malcolm Proud, Dublin–based Mexican curtal player, Mariana Paras, and Cork–based Finnish baroque violinist, Marja Gaynor. They will present a programme in honour of the four hundredth anniversary of William Byrd’s death.

The second evening will feature virtuoso Swiss organist, Vincent Thévenaz, professor of organ and improvisation at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva and titular organist and carilloneur of Saint–Pierre cathedral. Thévenaz will present the facsinating sound–world of avant–garde composer György Ligeti, celebrating this composer’s centenary.

The weekend programme of events will begin with a children’s concert and workshop led by Cathedral organist Simon Harden and an arrangement of Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ by Heinrich Grimm.

The Saturday evening concert will feature Sestina, a Belfast–based chamber choir directed by Mark Chambers. Sestina is highly regarded for historically informed performance and a freshness in their delivery of early music.

The final day of the festival will see Simon Harden in musical dialogue with leading Irish Trumpeters Colm Bryne and Eamonn Nolan and a tour de force of ‘organ–plus’ repertoire.

For more information go to info@waterfordinternationalfestival.ie

This evening (Saturday) at 8pm he Davidson United Methodist Church Choir and Bell Choir  from North Carolina will give a concert in St. Mary’s church, Maynooth,in aid of parish funds. Tomorrow the Choir will sing at the 10.15 am Service in St. Patrick’s church, Dalkey.

Tomorrow (Sunday) is Trinity Sunday when Christ Church cathedral will celebrate its Patronal Festival. The preacher at the 11am Sung Eucharist will be Canon Maurice Elliott, Director of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.

On Monday evening at 6pm the series of organ recitals will continue in  Christ Church cathedral, Dublin. The recitalist will be the Cathedral’s Director of Music, Tom Little.

The series of Summer Music at Sandford continues in Sandford parish church, Ranelagh. On Friday, at 1.10pm,  Hilda O’Mahony (violin) & Darragh Brogan (piano) will play music by Brahms and Pärt.

Top floral artist and former Chelsea Flower Show gold medallist Christopher White is directing a spectacular flower festival in St Andrew’s church in Malahide, which is celebrating its bicentenary. Beginning next Friday and continuing until the following Sunday, the Festival will be launched by RTE weather presenter Joanna Donnelly at 2pm on Friday in a short ceremony at which the Choir of St Brigid’s Girls’ National School in Killester will sing.

The Festival, which is entitled ‘The Good News in Flowers’, will remain open on Friday and Saturday until 8pm, with refreshments available in the St Andrew’s Parish Centre until 5.30pm, and will open again after Morning Service on the Sunday at 12.30pm, with refreshments also available until 5.30pm.

A Closing Service, on the Sunday at 6pm will be sung by the Choir of Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, under the direction of Tom Little.

Entry to the flower festival is €10 and includes a commemorative colour brochure detailing the 30 plus flower arrangements on display – all of which have been generously donated by parishioners of St Andrew’s in memory of loved ones.  All proceeds from the Flower Festival will  go towards the cost of a new organ.