Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from The Irish Times
Saturday 20 August 2005
Charles Wood Summer School in Armagh
Next Monday the 12th Charles Wood Summer School will begin in Armagh and continue until 28 August. The Summer School memorializes the organist and composer, Charles Wood, who was born in Armagh in 1866, the son of a lay vicar in St Patrick?s Cathedral who was also Diocesan Registrar. Wood was a chorister in the cathedral and was educated at the cathedral school and at the Royal College of Music where he studied under Parry.and Stanford whom he succeeded as Professor of Music in Cambridge. He is best remembered for his corpus of Anglican church music much of which is still sung regularly.
The main attraction at this year?s Summer School will be the visit of the renowned organist, Carlo Curley, who will open the week with an Organ and Choral Extravaganza in St Patrick?s Cathedral where he will be joined by the Charles Wood Singers. The American maestro will also work with young organists in a series of master classes.
Another new face at the Summer School will be the singer, Mary King, who is well known to television viewers as a panelist, presenter and vocal coach on Channel Four?s Operatunity and Musicality programmes. She and Paul Farrington will act as vocal coaches and will lead an extensive programme of workshops and master classes.
The Charles Wood Singers have been the ever present resident choir at the Summer School and will again provide choral music for church services and concerts. This year they will be joined by a boys? choir, directed by Nigel McClintock, the members of which have been drawn from eight choirs in England and Ireland. The boys will join the Charles Wood Singers for the final choral concert next Friday in St Patrick?s Cathedral.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning RTE will broadcast a Parish Eucharist with the parishioners from the Bandon union of parishes where the rector is the Revd Nigel Dunne. The union includes the parish churches of Bandon, Rathclaren, Innishannon, Ballinadee and Brinny. In Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the services will be sung by the Rawsthorne Singers.
Wednesday is the Feast of St Bartholomew and in the evening at 7 pm there will be a Patronal Festival Solemn Eucharist in St Bartholomew?s Church, Clyde Road, Dublin. The celebrant will be the vicar, Fr Michael Thompson, and the preacher will be the Precentor of Liverpool Cathedral, Canon Toby Forward. In the best high church fashion there will be a party afterwards.
St Bartholomew?s was built in the 1860s to cater for the developing Pembroke estate then on the fringes of the parishes of St Peter and Donnybrook. A site on Clyde Road was donated by the earl of Pembroke and the church was erected by the Dublin builder, James Scanlan to the design of Thomas Wyatt. It was consecrated by Archbishop Trench on 23 December 1867 and was distinguished from the very beginning by having no pew rents and all seats free. Clergy of the calibre of Richard Travers Smith, Harry Vere White (later Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe) and Walter Simpson ensured that the parish was built on sure foundations and in more recent times the distinctive witness of St Barts has been developed and fine tuned by Maurice Carey, John Paterson, the present Archbishop of Dublin and, most recently, John McKay. Its most enduring distinction, however, has been the maintenance of its high church tradition, and its colourful liturgy and good music have been, and remain, magnets attracting worshippers from across the city of Dublin and beyond.