Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from “The Irish Times”
Saturday 24 November 2011
New Directors of Music
The Board of St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, has appointed Mr David Stevens as Master of the Choristers and he will take up his post after next Easter. This is a newly shaped role that will involve the formation of both a boys’ choir and a girl’s choir for the Cathedral.
David Stevens is Director of the Girls’ Choir and Sub–Organist at Newcastle Cathedral and Director of Campus Music at Northumbria University He also teaches Choral Conducting to organ scholars at Oxford University. He read Music and was Organ Scholar at Oriel College, Oxford, and is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
He has conducted the BBC Singers, the choir of the London Oratory, the Royal Academy of Music Chamber Choir, the choir of New College, Oxford, and the Arcadian Singers of Oxford University.
In October the Board of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, appointed Mr Ian Keatley as Director of Music and he will take up his post next February. He is currently Director of Music at Westminster Abbey Choir School and was previously Deputy Master of Music at the Chapels Royal, H M Tower of London. From 2004 to 2006 he was Organ Scholar at Westminster Abbey. He performs regularly in the Abbey’s organ recital series
Mr Keatley is a graduate of the Royal College of Music and while studying there he spent two years as Assistant Director of Music at Croydon Parish Church and a further two years as Organ Scholar at Southwark Cathedral. Before moving to London he spent a year at Downside Abbey School and Wells Cathedral as a Choral Scholar while studying the organ and singing.
Today (Saturday) the Christ Church Christmas Market begins in the cathedral’s medieval crypt and will continue for the following three Saturdays from 11am until 4pm, while in Malahide the Parish Christmas Market will be held today (Saturday) from 10am until 3pm. In the evening the Archbishop of Dublin will commission parish readers in St John the Baptist’s Church, Clontarf.
Tomorrow (Sunday) Archbishop Jackson will preside and preach at a united service in Donoughmore parish church, Co. Wicklow, where he will also preside over the Girls’ Friendly Society enrolment. In Dublin, there will be Advent Processions in St Patrick’s Cathedral, at Evensong and in Christ Church Cathedral at 5pm while at 7pm in St Andrew’s Church, Malahide, there will be a Community Advent Carol Service.
On Monday the Archbishop of Dublin will receive a courtesy call from the Belgian ambassador.
Thursday is World AIDS Day which will be marked by Christian Aid with ‘Advent Hope’ a special evening of music and reflection at 8pm in Dundrum Methodist Church, Co. Dublin. At the same time there will be an Ecumenical Prayer Service for the UN Climate Summit in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, Balally, Dublin 16. Among the participants will be the Revd Elaine Murray, who next month will be instituted as Rector of Carrigaline, Co Cork, and the harpist, the Revd Anne–Marie O’Farrell who is an NSM in the parish of Sandford & Milltown.
On Friday evening at 7.30pm, in Stradbrook Rugby Club, Monkstown parish will hold an auction to raise funds both for the parish and to support missionary work.
Canon Patrick Comerford of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute is one of the principal contributors to the latest edition of the Journal of the Wexford Historical Society which was launched last week in the Greenacres Art Gallery in Wexford by Professor Kevin Whelan of the Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre, Dublin. Canon Comerford’s paper, ‘James Comerford (1817–1902): rediscovering a Wexford–born Victorian stuccodore’s art,’ looks at the work and career of his great–grandfather, James Comerford, who began his career working with the architects Richard Pierce, AWN Pugin and JJ McCarthy on their Wexford churches. After Pugin’s death, he moved from Wexford to Dublin, where his artistic and architectural work included the now–demolished ‘Irish House’ on the corner of Wintetavern Street and Wood Quay, below Christ Church Cathedral, and the Oarsman, a public house still standing in Ringsend.