Irish Church Music Association Summer School 2011

Annual summer school of the Irish Church Music Association
takes place in Maynooth - 4th - 8th July 2011.
250 parish choir members, directors, organists
and church musicians attend.

The 42nd annual summer school of the Irish Church Music Association opens today at Saint Patrick’s College Maynooth and runs until Friday 8 July.  The 2011 theme is The Mystery of Faith and it looks towards the introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal on the first Sunday of Advent on 27 November this year, and the celebration of Ireland hosting the International Eucharistic Congress in June 2012.

The guest director is Ms Órla Barry who returns to the summer school for the fourth time.  Órla is founder and director of Cantando, a chamber choir formed to explore the choral repertoire from Renaissance madrigals to contemporary works.  Órla was director of the Palestrina Choir at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin from 1996 to 2001.  She is a graduate of University College Dublin and the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, where she studied conducting.  Órla is head of music at St Raphaela’s Secondary School, Kilmacud, Dublin.

The usual range of tutorials will take place at this year’s Irish Church Music Association summer school: parish and contemporary music (Fr Liam Lawton and Chris de Silva), choral direction / conducting (Dominic Finn), cantor training (Sarah Waldron), liturgical composition (Edward Holden), organ (Eoin Tierney, Regina Deacy, Eanna McKenna and David Connolly), special choir (Órla Barry), schools (Monica Brown), chant (Giovanna Feeley), music by Irish composers for the new Missal translation (John O’Keeffe).

The summer school will be opened today by Bishop Brendan Kelly, Bishop of Achonry and member of the Council for Liturgy of the Irish Episcopal Conference.  Bishop Kelly also serves as observer for the working group established by the Congregation for Divine Worship to review the translation of the new edition of An Leabhar Aifrinn that is currently being prepared.

Bishop Kelly will launch Sing the Mass, an anthology of music for the new translation of the new edition of the Missal.  The anthology contains several new settings of the Mass as well as settings that have been in use in many cases.  Sing the Mass is also the anthology of Mass settings that will be used at the International Eucharistic Congress next year in Dublin.

Also to be launched is Celebrating the Mass throughout the Year, a resource produced by the National Centre for Liturgy in preparation for the new edition of the Missal.