Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from the Irish Times
Musical Changes in Christ Church
Next week Ms Judy Martin begins work as Director of Music in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. A music graduate of the University of Cambridge where she was a student in Selwyn College, she also holds a PCGE (Secondary) music qualification from Oxford Brookes University. Since 1986 she has held positions as organist, head of music and choral director at a number of schools, college and churches in England and Australia. Most recently she has been Director of Chapel Music in Worcester College, Oxford, and Organist of the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Oxford. Ms Martin’s appointment is believed to make her the first woman director of music in any major Anglican cathedral in Britain and Ireland.
One of her first jobs will be to select new members for the choir and to that end auditions will be held on Tuesday. There are vacancies in each voice part (soprano, alto/counter tenor, tenor and bass) and details may be had fromChrist Church Music Department
A new organ scholar, who will be shared with St Patrick’s Cathedral, also begins work in September. Tristram Russchler FRCO, also comes from Oxford where, until recently, he has been Organ Scholar in Worcester College. At the same time Andrew Johnstone, who has been Acting Director of Music during the vacancy begins a sabbatical which will last until January 2004.
Today (Saturday) and tomorrow (Sunday) there will be an art exhibition in St Mary’s Parish Centre, Howth, in support of a visit to Chile by Alice de Bruijn under the auspices of Experience Exchange Programme of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG). Admission is free and the exhibition is open from 10.00 am until 5.00 pm. Meanwhile in Carlisle the Choir of St Andrew’s Church, Malahide, directed by Rodney Baldwin, will sing the services in the Cathedral of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
Tomorrow (Sunday) is the last week of the Dublin summer choir recess and the visiting choir in Christ Church Cathedral will be the Salisbury Cathedral Congregational Choir while in St Patrick’s the St Patrick’s Cathedral Chamber Choir, directed by Andrew Mackriell, will sing the services.
The Bishop of Cork, the Rt Revd Paul Colton, will be in Sweden where he will represent the Church of Ireland at the consecration of the new Bishop of Visby, Lennart Koskinen, and the new Bishop of Gothenburg, Carl Axe Aurelius, in Uppsala. The Church of Sweden is governed by a General Synod of 251 members, a 15 member Central Board chaired by the Archbishop and a Bishops' Conference. The bishops attend the Synod but do not have the right to vote. Some 87 per cent of Swedish citizens are members of the Church of Sweden.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, has been in Geneva since 25 August at meetings of the World Council of Churches and this series of engagements will conclude on Monday and Tuesday. On Thursday he will attend the official opening of an exhibition in Archbishop Marsh’s Library of which he one of the Governors and Guardians. The exhibition, entitled ‘The Fountain of Genius’ will be opened by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr John O’Donoghue TD.
The founder of Marsh’s Library, Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Dublin form 1694 to 1703 and subsequently Archbishop of Armagh, is the subject of a recently published study by Dr Raymond Gillespie, Senior Lecturer in Modern History in NUI-Maynooth. Scholar Bishop. The Recollections and Diary of Narcissus Marsh, 1638-1696 has been published by Cork University Press at Euro 11.50.