Author: Goethe Choir

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.

After a break of 3 years due to the Covid pandemic, we are delighted to be returning to the National Concert Hall in Dublin on December 8th 2022 for our annual Christmas concert.  Entitled ‘Rejoice! A Christmas Celebration’, the concert will feature works by Handel, Kuhnau, Vierne, Schütz and Bach, as well as a selection of European carols.  The choir and orchestra will be conducted by our musical director John Dexter, with vocal soloists Ami Hewitt, Sharon Carty, Gavan Ring and Rory Dunne, and organist David Leigh.

For more information and to purchase tickets costing €20 (€15 concessions), go to the National Concert Hall website at https://www.nch.ie/Online/article/Goethe-Choir-08Dec22

A group of 19 members of the choir, accompanied by a number of partners and led by guest conductor David Leigh, made a very enjoyable and sociable visit to northern Germany from July 9-18, 2022.  The focus of the trip was a visit to Loccum Abbey in Lower Saxony, where Corinna and Joachim Diestelkamp, former members of the choir and previously joint pastors in St. Finian’s Lutheran Church, Dublin, are now pastors.   They have instigated an annual performance in the abbey church each summer of a Bach cantata as part of the morning service and we were delighted to be invited by them to take part in the performance this year, which took place on Sunday morning July 17th.

After flying to Hamburg, we stayed in Zarpen, near Lübeck, in Stade, an historic Hanseatic town near Hamburg and finally in Loccum.  In addition to singing the Bach cantata in Loccum, we also gave concerts of our own to welcoming and appreciative audiences in the churches at Hamberge (near Lübeck), Gnarrenburg (near Bremen), Groß Berkel (near Hamelin) and ending with a concert in Loccum Abbey church on Sunday evening July 17.  We also sang during the morning service in Zarpen church on July 10 and after the midday prayer service in St.Michael’s church (the Michel) in Hamburg on July 12, as well as taking in some sightseeing and leisure time in Lübeck, Hamelin, Stade and Hamburg.

To see photos of our trip and videos of some of our performances there, go to goethechoir.ie/gallery.

Corinna and Joachim Diestelkamp are returning to Ireland for a visit later this month with a party of travellers from Germany and will be at St. Finian’s Lutheran church in Adelaide Road in Dublin for the morning service at 11am on Sunday August 14th.  Members of the Goethe Choir are delighted to be able to welcome them to Dublin by joining the service to sing some of the pieces that we recently performed in Germany.

The Goethe Choir is delighted and honoured to be taking part in an evening of music in aid of Ukraine, being held in St. Finian’s Lutheran Church, 24 Adelaide Road, Dublin 2 at 7pm on Thursday 12 May.  We will be performing a number of works from our recent concert in Christ Church cathedral in Dublin, as well as some additional pieces.   The concert will also feature Cuore Chamber Choir along with other performers.  All donations received will go to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Following our resumption of normal rehearsals earlier in the year the Goethe Choir is delighted to announce a return to the Dublin concert scene after an absence of over two years with our Spring Concert for 2022, which will be taking place at 8pm on Sunday 24th April in Christ Church cathedral in Dublin.  The programme will consist of a range of choral and instrumental works by composers including Bach, Eccard, Fauré and Telemann, ending in a performance of the final chorus from Bach’s glorious B minor mass – ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ – which gives our concert its very appropriate title.

Tickets cost €20 (€15 for students and unwaged) and may be obtained via choir members or booked online via Eventbrite at https://bit.ly/3DbZneP.    Tickets unsold in advance will be available for purchase at the door.  Go to our website Events page for more information about the concert programme and about those taking part.

Following our recent recording of a Prayer for Ukraine (see our website blog entry for more info), three choir members – Werner Blau, David Denby and Geraldine Hynes – were invited in to the RTE Radio studios in Dublin to talk about the piece and the recording, as part of the Leap in Faith programme which was broadcast on Radio 1 on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th.

If you’d like to hear the discussion, which is followed by our performance of the piece, go to https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/the-leap-of-faith/programmes/2022/0317/1287074-the-leap-of-faith-thursday-17-march-2022/.  The item starts 33 minutes into the programme.