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Music Connections in DCU

Choir performance at Music Connections in DCU. Photo taken by Eoin Campbell, School of Communications

A new lunch-time concert series started on a high note when students of St Patrick's College presented a varied programme at The Helix. Music Connections in DCU will present four further concerts in the series next semester. These will be performances by students or staff of the university, the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Mater Dei Institute and Newpark Music Centre. The first concert on Wednesday, 14th December, featured the 60-strong St Patrick's College choir who opened and closed the programme. Their first set included an American folk song and a 17th century French carol and there were more seasonal songs, including the popular Wexford Carol, in the closing set.

Sandwiched between the choir's performances were classical piano pieces and two sets of traditional Irish tunes. Third-year student Anna Bourke played a brooding and demanding prelude by Rachmaninov and second-year student Catherine Murphy played the well-known Fantaisie Impromptu by Chopin. This mini-recital represented a first public hearing of the magnificent Steinway grand piano recently acquired for use in such concerts in The Helix. The traditional Irish group of three fiddles, flute, harp, concertina and bodhrán played a slow air, two jigs and three reels in a measured set.

The concert was dedicated to the memory of DCU lecturer Tom Lawrence, musician, composer and sound artist, who died two months ago. Dr Lawrence helped set up the inter-institutional collaboration behind this concert series. He was also a member of the group whose advisory report contributed to the Arts and Culture Initiative of which the Music Connections series is part.