This series of four weekly summer concerts commenced in 1999 and is now entering its twenty-sixth year and has thus become a well-established feature of the summer national cultural calendar, having survived the Covid years when public performances with live audience had to be abandoned in favour of online performances of one kind or another. Thank God we are now well back to the normal annual pattern of four weekly July recitals in the beautiful parish church which has such a special and splendid Danish-built pipe organ.
For this 26th series we are returning to our roots, with emphasises on the organ with its core repertory extending over four centuries of musical composition.
It’s a real pleasure to welcome once again outstanding local talent for the first concert with a return of the award-winning Tullamore Academy Chamber Choir who will be partnered by the series founding father and artistic director, Professor Gerard Gillen, who will accompany the choir in Dutch composer Jacob de Haan’s Missa Brevis as well as contributing a few solo numbers on the Frobenius organ.
For the second concert we welcome regular contributors to the series, organist Charles Marshall, who will share the honours with distinguished Rumanian violinist Bogdan Sofei. For the third concert we have from the University of Oxford two outstanding young musicians, Belfast-born organist Dónal McCann and English soprano Maryam Wocial. And for the final concert on 23rd July we welcome one of France’s most distinguished organists, Madame Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, organiste-titulaire of the great church of San-Sulpice in Paris.
Central to each of these four recitals is our Danish-built pipe organ. Once again it is fitting to acknowledge the generosity of the Lutheran Church of Copenhagen in giving this magnificent organ to our beautiful Church in Tullamore some thirty years ago. We are reminded that we have here a world-class organ of which we are truly proud, and this series of summer concerts gives the wider public an opportunity to experience its grandeur in the hands of some of the most acclaimed international and national organists, playing solo and making music with fellow musicians and ensembles. It is my wish that this twenty-sixth annual series of concerts will bring as much enjoyment and refreshment as in previous years to all who participate and listen.
+ Tom Deenihan
Bishop of Meath