News

The Goethe Choir gave its summer concert for 2023 on Sunday afternoon 28th May in St. Ann’s church, Dawson Street, Dublin.  An appreciative audience heard a performance of a range of works from multiple countries and musical periods, reflecting the coming of summer.  These included an arrangement of the Irish song ‘Thugamar Féin an Samhradh Linn’ by choir member Mary Kelly, and a first performance of a work by another choir member, Werner Blau.  We were conducted by our musical director John Dexter.  The concert also featured violinist David O’Doherty, who joined the choir in performing the final item on the programme, Haydn’s motet ‘Insanae et Vanae Curae’, with John Dexter accompanying on the organ and Mary Kelly conducting.  Go to the Gallery page on our website to seem some photos of the event.

There will be another opportunity to hear the choir singing when we will be taking part in the ‘United in Music’ concert in St. Finian’s Lutheran Church, Adeilade Road, Dublin 2 at 7pm on Wednesday 14 June, 2023.  This will be an evening of music in support of refugees worldwide – all donations made at this concert will go to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Former Goethe-Institut Choir member Iris Taylor was in the audience for our recent performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in the Church of St. Thérèse, Mount Merrion, Dublin which prompted her to write and broadcast a piece about the work and about our performance of it.  You can read her thoughts via this link.

Iris was one of the first members of the Goethe-Institut Choir, which she has written about in her recently published ‘Memoirs of a Reluctant German‘.  She continued singing until the 1990s  when she dropped out because of illness but has always been a keen supporter.  She now lives mostly in Clifden, co. Galway.

If you would like to see a slideshow containing photos from the concert with a backing track of our performance of the final chorus from the work, go to the Gallery page on our website.

Our summer concert will be taking place at 3pm on Sunday 28th May in St. Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin.  We will be presenting a multilingual musical journey through Europe visiting Ireland, England, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Russia including choral and instrumental favourites by Johann Sebastian Bach, Anton Bruckner, William Byrd, Joseph Haydn, Heinrich Isaac, Thomas Morley, Orlando di Lasso, Henry Purcell, Igor Stravinsky and others.

The choir will be conducted by our musical director John Dexter and we will be joined by violin soloist David O’Doherty.  Join us for an uplifting and joyful celebration of the arrival of summer.

Admission is €15 at the door.

Our recent performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in the Church of St. Thérèse, Mount Merrion, Dublin was hugely successful and was enthusiastically received with a standing ovation by a large and appreciative audience, after over 3 hours of wonderful music.   Congratulations to all the performers and to all those involved in organising the concert, but especially to our music director John Dexter for guiding us so successfully through a challenging but highly rewarding musical experience.

We have received much positive feedback to our performance since the concert, including the following from our Evangelist, Dustin Drosdziok, prior to his return to Germany: “I enjoyed the concert very much and had the impression that there was real and honest commitment from everyone involved.  It was a great performance.  I wish you all the best and many more beautiful concerts.”

If you would like to see a slideshow containing photos from the concert with a backing track of our performance of the final chorus from the work, go to the Gallery page on our website.

The choir is working hard in preparation for our upcoming performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in the Church of St. Thérèse, Mount Merrion, Dublin at 7pm on Sunday, February 26th.  We’re all looking forward to having a rare opportunity to sing this wonderful work to a large and appreciative audience.

During the performance, the audience will be invited to join in the singing of the melody line for five of the chorales, a practice which was common in Bach’s time.  You can see and hear us rehearsing one of these chorales at https://youtu.be/F0mLUoUCKzU – the text of the chorale is displayed on the video, so if you wish you can take the opportunity to get in some pre-concert practice by joining in the singing.

Tickets, priced €30 (€25 concessions), may be purchased online via this link.

 

After the choir’s highly successful return to the concert platform in December with our Christmas concert in the National Concert Hall in Dublin, we are delighted to be presenting a performance of JS Bach’s magnificent St. Matthew Passion at 7pm on Sunday evening February 26th, in the church of St. Thérèse, Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin.  This is a rare opportunity to hear a live performance in Ireland of one of the masterworks of European civilisation.

Tickets costing €30 (€25 concessions) may be obtained from choir members or purchased online at JS Bach – St Matthew Passion Tickets, Sun 26 Feb 2023 at 19:00 | Eventbrite.  For more details and information on the performers and location, go to the Events page on our website.

 

Tuesday 13th, to finish off the singing term after our concert on the 8th, we got together for some social catching up. Florian, Anja and the church council at St Finian’s were kind enough to host our pre-Christmas social in the lovely Lutherhaus. It was “bring your own”, without too much preparation or fuss, but the turnout was very good and everyone brought so much that we never stopped eating and drinking. Thanks everyone for another lovely evening and Merry Christmas,
Sophia

An intrepid group of Goethe Choir choristers braved the freezing conditions and came together for 2 hours to sing carols in Heuston Station, Dublin, on Sunday afternoon Dec 11, collecting money in aid of Focus Ireland.   Wrapped up warmly against the cold weather, we had a lot of fun entertaining the travellers, with the occasional assistance of a few passers-by, and were delighted to have collected the sum of €663.25 for the charity.

You can hear a sample of our singing, in this case the second verse (Oíche Chiúin) of our trilingual version of Silent Night, which the full choir had performed in the National Concert Hall in Dublin 3 days earlier, by going to https://youtu.be/sJgT5Bcs3ZM.

Many thanks to the 18 choristers who took part, to Cliona and Brigitte for organising the event, Werner for preparing the music, Geraint for leading the choir and/or playing the station piano and Cliona’s children and friends for shaking the collecting buckets.

The choir returned to the National Concert Hall in Dublin last Thursday evening, December 8th, for our traditional Christmas concert. after an absence of three years due to Covid19 restrictions.  The concert was especially enjoyable because of that, for performers and audience alike.

As well as taking part in a performance of the first part of JS Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and a cantata by Johann Kuhnau (Bach’s predecessor as director of music in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig), we sang a selection of European carols, including a beautiful carol from the Ukraine.  We were joined by the wonderful vocal soloists Ami Hewitt, Sharon Carty, Gavan Ring and Rory Dunne, and the virtuosic David Leigh on organ, all under the magnificent direction of our musical director John Dexter.

Go to the Gallery page on our website for some photos of the evening.

A number of singers from the Goethe Choir sang at Glencree’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in the beautiful Wicklow hills for Volkstrauertag. As always, it was beautiful and atmospheric and important to remember some of our more difficult recent past. The service was lovely. Thanks everyone!