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After some personal practice at home and a group rehearsal the evening before our trip, we flew to Hamburg early on November 21st and travelled onward to Lüneburg by train. This allowed us to join the 90-member choir in their final rehearsals on the evenings of the 21st and 22nd, culminating in the concert on Saturday, the 23rd. The event was held in a large, converted barn on a country estate just outside Lüneburg, now transformed into a modern concert hall. With orchestral accompaniment, the performance was met with enthusiasm by a capacity audience, Jenkins’ work being popular and featuring many memorable musical moments.

We received a wonderfully warm and welcoming reception from the Lüneburg choir members and in particular from the host families with whom we stayed, which made the trip a very memorable and rewarding experience for all. And we had a chance to share our apprecation and enjoyment with our choral companions after the concert, complete in some cases with Karl Jenkins moustaches, as you can see here.

Our first performance since our summer break will take place at 8pm on Saturday 5th October in Trinity College Chapel, Dublin. We are delighted to be joined for this concert by the Stadtkantorei choir from Stade, Germany (where a section of the choir stayed during our visit to northern Germany in 2022) and by the Royal Irish Academy of Music Brass Quintet.

This promises to be an enjoyable celebration of togetherness in music and features works by a range of composers, including JS Bach, Bruckner, Haydn, Stanford and others. Admission to the concert is free but donations on the night are welcome.

The choir held its summer concert last Sunday afternoon June 9th in the Church of St. Thérèse, Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin.  We were privileged to perform with the internationally acclaimed Irish pianist John O’Conor, who delighted an enthusiastic and highly appreciative audience in a series of works by Beethoven.  This included a solo performance by him of the Pathetique Sonata as well as the piano accompaniment (along with solo violin and cello) of the wonderful soprano soloist Emma Nash and the choir sopranos and altos in a number of Beethoven’s arrangements of Irish melodies.

The concert culminated in a performance of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy for piano, orchestra and chorus, a work which opens with an extended passage of brilliant music for solo piano before continuing with orchestral accompaniment and finally being joined by the choir for a rousing and ecstatic conclusion, which received a standing ovation from the enraptured audience.   We were particularly delighted to be able to give a repeat performance of a work that John O’Conor had previously played with the choir in 1976.

Go to our Gallery webpage to see some photos of the occasion.

We are delighted and honoured to be performing Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy on Sunday afternoon, 9th June 2024, with the internationally acclaimed Irish pianist John O’Conor.  This is a repeat performance of the work which he previously gave with the choir in Dublin in December 1976.   The concert will take place in the church of St. Thérèse, Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin, the venue for our memorable performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in February 2023.

The programme will also contain a performance by John O’Conor of Beethoven’s ‘Pathetique’ piano sonata and a performance by soprano Emma Nash of Beethoven’s arrangements of a number of Irish songs, with choir accompaniment.  The choir will also be singing additional works by Mozart and Handel.  Tickets cost €35 each and are available online from Eventbrite or at the door on the day of the concert.

Today (29/03/24) is the centenary of the death of Charles Villiers Stanford, a prolific composer who was born in Dublin in 1852 and died in London in 1924.  Stanford wrote many orchestral, chamber and choral works, as well as a number of operas, but is remembered today mostly for his sacred music.  The Goethe Choir will be marking the centenary by performing three of these works in a concert in Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Saturday evening, 6th April 2024, which will also contain works by Bruckner (‘Te Deum’) and Smetana, marking the bicentenary of the birth of both these composers.

Tickets for the concert are available via Eventbrite.   You can see and hear us singing part of one of the Stanford works in a recent rehearsal at https://youtu.be/Ic4r81hYpS8.