Category: News

 

After having to cancel our annual Christmas concert last year due to Covid19 restrictions, we’re delighted to be able to announce that we’ll be returning to the National Concert Hall in Dublin at 8pm on Monday December 6th this year for our Christmas concert.  We will still be subject to restrictions in terms of physical separation of choir members during the concert and will be performing with organ and a number of individual instrumentalists instead of our usual orchestral accompaniment, but it will be great to be back singing to a live audience once again.  We are now back in full rehearsals working hard in preparation for the concert.

The programme will consist of Part 1 of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and a selection of other works by composers including Handel, Purcell and Fauré.  For more details go to our Events page.

Tickets will be available for ordering online from 10am on Friday 12 November via the National Concert Hall website at www.nch.ie.

We are delighted and honoured to have again been invited to sing by the German Embassy on Remembrance Day – Sunday 14th of November – at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation. The service is always very moving and the location of course very beautiful. Can’t wait!

After a long time in what sometimes seemed like a musical desert, choir rehearsals start up again from 5th October. Sooooo exciting. Can’t wait to see you all again 🙂  Sophia

Following the easing of Covid19 restrictions in September and October we are delighted to announce that the Goethe Choir is planning to return to weekly in-person rehearsals starting on Tuesday Oct 5th.  These will take place in our usual rehearsal venue in the Lutherhaus, St. Finian’s Church, Adelaide Road, Dublin 2.  We will need to implement a range of procedures in order to ensure the safety of all concerned, including the wearing of masks during singing, maintaining physical separation between singers, ensuring adequate ventilation during the rehearsal and cleaning and sanitizing all surfaces after use.  This means that we will be unable to accommodate a full choir at each rehearsal, so it is planned to divide the membership in two and allow each group to rehearse in alternate weeks.  Rehearsals will be available to be viewed live remotely by members during the weeks in which they are not attending.

We are planning to hold our usual Christmas concert in the National Concert Hall once more this year in December, if conditions permit, and will be rehearsing an exciting programme in preparation for that.  We are keen to attract new members to the choir following our resumption after a long lay-off, so if you are not currently a choir member and would like to join us in these rehearsals as a choir member, please contact us via our ‘Join Us‘ webpage.

Our 2020/21 season came to an end with our final rehearsal on Tuesday May 27th.  It’s been a very strange year, as we’ve been unable to meet physically, but fortunately we have managed to keep active through weekly video rehearsals and Zoom sessions.  A big vote of thanks must go to our musical director John Dexter for facilitating this by recording a series of rehearsal videos each week throughout the year for members to follow at home on Tuesday evenings.  We are still unsure of the situation in September but we are hoping to be able to get together again in some form for our weekly rehearsals every Tuesday evening in the Lutherhaus, Adelaide Road, Dublin 2.

As a memento of our rehearsals in lockdown some of the choir members remotely recorded one of the pieces that we worked on over the last term, ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’ by Fauré.  Each member recorded themselves at home, the individual recordings then being mixed with a keyboard accompaniment (played by John Dexter) and a solo cello (played by John’s son Patrick) to produce the composite performance.  You can see and hear the result at https://youtu.be/ZPbH9ON_tCQ.

As the German Embassy in Dublin is not able to organise their traditional Christmas Concert this year, they have asked the European Embassies in Ireland for their favourite Christmas song, which they will post on their Facebook and Instagram sites during Advent.   

As part of this project, the Goethe Choir has been asked to represent the German Embassy and in response to this request we have recorded the traditional German song ‘O Tannenbaum’.  As we are currently unable to meet for rehearsal, choir members recorded themselves individually at home and the recordings were then mixed together for a composite video, conducted by our music director John Dexter.

The embassy will launch the project by posting our video together with a contribution from ambassador Deike Potzel on Sunday November 29th, the first Sunday in Advent.  This will be followed in stages during Advent by posts of contributions from the embassies of Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, Denmark, Cyprus and Malta and from the European Commission Representation in Ireland.   The final post will be on December 24th.

Posts will be published in the late afternoon and can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/GermanEmbassyDublin/ and https://www.instagram.com/GermanEmbassyDublin/