Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from the Irish Times
Christmas Music
In the coming days there will be a feast of seasonal music in churches and cathedrals throughout the Church of Ireland. Many of these buildings possess a splendid acoustic as well as providing an appropriate seasonal backdrop for the music of Advent and Christmas.
This evening (Saturday), at 8.00 pm, in St Ann's Church, Dawson Street, Dublin, David Leigh's exciting new chamber choir, Res Nova, together with the period instrumental group, Seanma, will give a concert entitled 'Puer Natis est Nobis' which will include seasonal music by Tallis, Sweelinck and Cornysh.
Tomorrow (Sunday) at Evensong in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, there will be the annual chorister awards which will be followed by a performance of Messiaen's Le Nativité du Seigneur, nine meditations on the birth of Christ, by the cathedral's assistant organist, David Leigh. At 4.00 pm, in the atmospheric environment of the medieval church of St Doulagh, which is part of the Malahide group of parishes, there will be a Service of Carols and Christmas Readings with music from the Brass Band of the 1st Dublin Co. of the Boys' Brigade.
In the evening, at 7.00 pm, the Dublin Civic Carol Service will be held in St Ann's Church, Dawson Street, where the Lord Mayor, the Archbishop of Dublin and others from the city community will take part. At the same time in St Bartholomew's Church, Clyde Road, there will be a Concert of Carols and Festive Readings with actor and director, Alan Stanford, while in St Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenney, the Bishop of Cashel and Ossory will preside at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.
On Monday evening in St Patrick's Cathedral there will be a Lucia Celebration with members of the Stockholm Music School Kammarkor. In Swedish tradition, on Lucia Eve, a young girl, dressed in a long white gown and wearing a crown of lighted candles, leads a procession of young girls and boys singing traditional Lucia carols.
At lunchtime on Thursday the Archbishop of Dublin will be at Christ Church Cathedral for the Charity Carol Service when the Cathedral Girls' Choir will sing in aid of Trust, the organization founded by one of the true heroes of our time, Alice Leahy, to help the homeless. In the evening in St Patrick's Cathedral the Irish Baroque Orchestra will give a performance of Handel's Messiah.
Tomorrow (Sunday) RTÉ will broadcast a Parish Eucharist from All Saints Church, Grangegorman, Dublin, where the vicar is Canon David Pierpoint while in Co. Down the Archbishop of Armagh will preach at a Dedication Service in Comber parish church.
In Dublin on Monday the Vicar of St Ann's Church, Dawson Street, Canon Tom Haskins, and his curate, the Revd Joyce Rankin, will begin a Sit-Out for Charity which will continue until 20 December. They will be joined from Tuesday to Saturday by the parish choir who will sing carols. Among the causes which will benefit from the Sit-Out will be the Bishops' Appeal and the St Vincent de Paul. The progenitor of the Christmas Sit-Out, the Dean of Belfast, will begin his Christmastide vigil outside St Anne's Cathedral on Thursday and continue until Christmas Eve. The Belfast Sit-Out was the brain child of the late Dean Samuel Crooks and is continued enthusiastically by the current Dean of Belfast, Dr Houston McKelvey.
A second cleric from the Porvoo Churches has come to work in the Church of Ireland. The Revd Marianne Witting from the Church of Sweden has been appointed by the Bishop of Clogher to the Donagh group of parishes, based on Glaslough, Co. Monaghan.