PICTURE this. The conductor raises his baton and the voices soar to the roof of cathedral, if not straight to heaven. A full blown baroque mass with mixed choir, girls' choir, double orchestra and organ improvisations it sounds like the sort of sumptuous event which belongs to another time and place altogether, but next Tuesday evening in Dublin's Christ Church Cathedral you can step straight into the atmosphere of a French baroque festival mass when Charpentier's luxuriously titled Messe a 8 voix et 8 violons et flutes is given as part of the ninth Dublin Organ and Choral Festival.
As if all that weren't exciting enough, the concert will mark the debut of Christ Church Baroque, a new professional orchestra using players from both the National Symphony Orchestra and RTE Concert Orchestra and the brainchild of Christ Church's organist and director of music Mark Duley.
"All the big cathedrals had their own instrumental ensembles, so that's what we're hoping to start here a house orchestra for big events, Bach cantatas and orchestral masses and things like that" says Duley, who will be wielding the baton on Tuesday night, with the Dutch virtuoso organist Ben van Oosten as soloist. Christ Church Baroque will play on modern instruments to begin with although there will be two baroque flutes on this occasion and switch to authentic instruments when it has been well and truly established.
If baroque music isn't your cup of tea, though, the organ and choral festival which runs from Monday June 17th to Sunday 23rd offers plenty of alternatives. It isn't every day a brand new organ concerto is unveiled, but Peter Sweeney will do precisely that when he gives the world premiere of Ian Wilson's Rich Harbour with the National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall on Friday June 21st. It isn't every day a brand new organ comes on the scene either, but the instrument at the Franciscan Church on Merchant's Quay has just been restored and will be competing for pride of place on Thursday June 20th with the visiting choirs of St Eugene's Cathedral in Derry, conducted by Donal Doherty in a wide ranging programme which includes Bruckner's E minor mass, Widor's Symphonie Romaine with Ben van Oosten as soloist, and organ works by contemporary Irish composers Colin Mawby, Seamus de Barra and Kevin O'Connell.
THERE is also a full programme of evening and lunchtime recitals during the week. On Sunday next the American organist and teacher Joan Lippincott plays Bach and Mozart at St Michael's Church, Dun Laoghaire (she will also give a series of morning master classes to young Irish organ students at the Royal Irish Academy of Music) on Monday it's the turn of Birmingham city organist Thomas Trotter, who will be showing off the newly restored organ at St Patrick's Cathedral at the NCH on Wednesday evening the Lebanese organist and composer Naji Hakim will perform a programme of French organ music, including some of his own pieces, and will also improvise in the best French tradition and the final concert of the festival will be given by organ duo Colin Andrews and Janette Fishell at St Michael's Church, Dun Laoghaire on Sunday June 23rd.
Lunchtime highlights include Gerard Gillen with the NSO at the National Concert Hall on Tuesday, Fergal Caulfield with a programme of contemporary music in Trinity College Chapel on Wednesday and an organ and guitar recital by Una Russell and John Feeley at Christ Church on Thursday. And all the stops will be pulled out twice over when Mark Duley and Andrew Johnstone spring some surprises on two chamber organs at Christ Church on Friday June 21st.
