Choral Music in the Cathedral and Concerts
Concerts
Music in Kilkenny Spring 2012Wednesday 4th April 6.30 p.m. Part 1: 8.30 p.m. Part 2
J.S.Bach
St Matthew Passion BWV244
Resurgam with the Irish Baroque Orchestra Conductor Mark Duley
also featuring the Choirs of St Canice's Cathedral and Kilkenny College.
Saturday 19th May 5p.m.
Catherine Ennis Organ Recital
Playing works by J.S.Bach, Cesar Franck, Max Reger, Karg-Elert and Maurice Durufle.
Tickets for all 'Music in Kilkenny' concerts €15 €10 concession for organ recital but not for St. Matthew Passion.
Information www.musicinkilkenny.com Tel;056 7761497
Cathedral Music
The Dean and Select Vestry are delighted to announce new developments for the cathedral music programme with the appointment of David Forde who joins us as Assistant Organist and Choirmaster to Malcolm Proud. Our new ‘music team’ allows the very distinct roles of organist and choral director to be shared between Malcolm and David, as happens in most great cathedrals, and opens up many opportunities to broaden the music repertoire for services and other events.Organists
We are very fortunate to have Malcolm Proud, an internationally renowned virtuoso musician, as our organist. In addition to his work at the cathedral and in the Department of Creative and Performing Arts at WIT, Malcolm has just completed a highly acclaimed 12 recital series of Bach’s Partitas with concerts in Kilkenny, Cork, Sligo, Galway and Dublin. In September he and Camerata Kilkenny made two trips to Switzerland and one to Belgium. This month he is working with the Irish Baroque Orchestra in programmes of Bach, Handel and Telemann at the Lutheran Church in Dublin and giving three solo lunchtime recitals at the NCH. To keep updated on Malcolm’s performances you can follow his website.
www.malcolmproud.ie
David Forde is originally from Waterford and is a former student of Malcolm’s at WIT. David moved to Kilkenny in 2011 and is Deputy Principal at Carlow Institute of Further Education. Prior to this, he lived in the UK and was organist and director of music at St Patrick’s Bristol and organ advisor to churches in West Country Clifton Diocese. He was also Head of Performing Arts at Bridgwater College in Somerset, where he developed an award-winning choral programme with ensembles that ranged from Renaissance choral repertoire to the UK’s first college Show Choir.
Andrew Burrows is another of Malcolm’s pupils; he has played at a number of services in the cathedral and has recently started conducting the choir under David and Malcolm’s guidance. Andrew is in his final year at Kilkenny College and hopes to study music next year. Perhaps we are seeing a tradition emerge at the cathedral as Malcolm himself was taught by one of his predecessors, David Lee! We hope to develop further opportunities to encourage and train young church musicians.
The Choir
The cathedral choir continues to grow in numbers, with several new members joining the ranks. Many will have enjoyed the choir’s wonderful singing at the Carol and Christmas services, where amongst other repertoire, the choir gave Haydn’s Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo ,also known as the ‘Little Organ Mass’
Having both organist and choral director makes such repertoire a real possibility and there are plans to sing similar great music over the coming months. The choir were invited by the Dean of Old Leighlin to sing for the Candlemas service which was also recorded for broadcast by RTE.
On Wednesday 4th April the choir will join with Resurgam and the Irish Baroque Orchestra and the Choir from Kilkenny College.
New choir members are always welcome – rehearsals are held at the cathedral on Fridays at 7.00pm and the choir sings at the 11.30am service on three Sundays each month as well as at Evensongs and concerts in the cathedral and elsewhere. If you think you would like to experience church choral singing why not attend some rehearsals to see what the choir is all about? You will be made most welcome by the choir so please feel free to ask Malcolm, David or any of the choir about coming to a rehearsal or two to see if it is for you. People who aren’t entirely sure about what type of singing voice they have can also look out for some workshop sessions that will be announced in the coming months. Please don’t be shy about coming forward!
The Organ
The cathedral’s magnificently reconstructed pipe organ continues to attract great praise from all who play it. Amongst other projects, our organ builder Trevor Crowe is currently engaged in an ambitious rebuilding of the organ at St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork and has recently completed the specialist reed-voicing work for the new early English style organ built by William Drake for the OBE chapel at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London – bringing that building’s total number of organs to five! At St. Canice’s, we can look forward to hearing more of our great pipe organ, not only in services but also in concerts over the coming year.
To find out more information regarding music, concerts and events contact St. Canice's Cathedral & Round Tower