June brings its quota of music festivals. Among these Dublin International Chamber Music brought a number of home and visiting artists to its various locations while the current Pipeworks Organ and Choral Festival opened at the National Concert Hall last Tuesday and continues at selected venues until Sunday next June 25 at St Michael’s Church in Dun Laoghaire.
This concluding recital is part of St Michael’s own annual summer Sunday organ music series that continues until September.
Besides its concerts and recitals, Pipeworks festival introduces Meet the Organ – a number of talks and interviews by and with the musicians taking part. The festival also conducts a number of master classes led by some of the performing artists.
Following the opening NCH event with the NSO conducted by festival director, David Leigh, and soloist David Goode heard in music by Marcel Dupré and Camille Saint-Saëns, the festival’s education officer, David O’Shea, gave a talk on the Hall’s magnificent Kenneth Jones instrument installed in 1991.
Yesterday found David Leigh on home ground in St Patrick’s Cathedral where his recital celebrated the sesquicentenary of Liege-born Joseph Jongen with his substantial Eroica Sonata and that of Max Reger through his significant Op 135b Fantasia and Fugue.
This evening June 22 the festival focus moves to Dublin’s other venerable cathedral – Christ Church – for what will be a further highlight through the visit of the internationally acclaimed choral group, The Tallis Scholars. Entitled Reflecting Byrd, their concert commemorates the 400th anniversary of the composer’s death on July 4, 1623.
There will be a lunchtime recital tomorrow Friday June 23 in Sandford parish church by Birmingham-born Francesca Massey, who is also a fellow of the distinguished Royal College of Organists. Her varied programme will be preceded by a chat between herself and Trevor Crowe, the man responsible for the recent restoration of Sandford’s organ.
Tomorrow evening brings a return to St Patrick’s Cathedral and David Goode, described as “one of the leading organists of his generation”. Fulfilling an international schedule of solo and concerto appearances, Goode’s wide-ranging discography includes a complete Bach series and major works by Max Reger. His programme will “showcase the many facets and colours” of St Patrick’s magnificent 1902 Willis instrument.
On Saturday afternoon in TCD’s Public Theatre, once called the Examination Hall, Edinburgh City Organist John Kitchen converses with Andrew Johnstone. Both highly enthusiastic scholars of early English music, they will discuss the life and works of William Byrd (c.1540-1623).
On Saturday evening Kitchen’s TCD recital will be devoted mainly to Byrd but inserts pieces by the latter’s contemporaries Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tomkins. The idea is to demonstrate the varied possibilities of the TCD instrument, “recently reconstructed in historic style” by the Nottingham firm of Goetze and Gwynn.
A recital by Matthew Owens, who has held posts in Edinburgh, Manchester, Wells and Belfast, ends the festival on Sunday June 25 in St Michael’s Dun Laoghaire. His programme offers the Irish première of Howard Skempton’s Preludes and Fugues, a work, it is said, that shows the Chester-born composer’s “colossal intellectual status and communicative capability”!