Sing a song of Christmas

"COMFORT ye, comfort ye..." For many people Christmas begins with the beautiful, familiar opening words of Handel's Messiah, taken from the 40th chapter of the Old Testament Book of Isaiah; and indeed, as the festive season approaches and the secular society goes into shape-up-and-shop overdrive, comfort - from whatever source - is not to be sniffed at.

This year musical solace can be had in almost infinite variety, both old - with the traditional church services of nine lessons and carols or midnight Mass, carol concerts and, of course, Messiahs - and new, in the shape of a brand-new chamber choir for Dublin and the premieres of pieces by Irish composers Seoirse Bodley and Mary McAuliffe.

If you're keen to make an early start you can catch the Culwick Choral Society's Messiah at St Patrick's Cathedral tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m., with soloists Suzanne Murphy, soprano, Deirdre Cooling-Nolan, alto, David Fieldsend, tenor, and Richard Conrad, bass. Or you can wait for Our Lady's Choral Society at the National Concert Hall on Monday December 16th, Wednesday 18th Thursday 19th and Friday 20th, when the soloists will be Cara O Sullivan, Bridget Knowles, Emmanuel Lawler and Ian Caddy with the National Sinfonia conducted by Proinnsias O Duinn - but it's wise to book in advance as these performances are always well attended, to put it mildly.

Our Lady's Choral Society will also give a concert of Christmas music in aid of Friends of the National Gallery on Friday December 6th, at the gallery (tickets £15 from Arlene Hogan, tel. 01-661 9877), a free carol concert in St Ann's Church, Dawson Street on Tuesday December 10th, and a Messiah at St Mary of the Rosary Church, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, on Friday December 13th, with soloists Joan Merrigan an Deirdre Cooling-Nolan, Emmanuel Lawler and Gerard O Connor. Readers in Limerick will have a Messiah of their own when the National Chamber Choir performs the work at the University of Limerick Concert Hall, with the Irish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Roger Vignoles and soloists Orla Boylan, Eithne Robinson, Martyn Hill and George Mosley. That's on December 18th and 19th, at 8 p.m.

NEXT Saturday (December 7th), meanwhile, is the date set for Amnesty International's annual carol concert at Christ Church Cathedral at 8 p.m.. This year the event features the choral group Cantique, conducted by Blanaid Murphy, with a selection of Christmas carols, and some exotic sounds from the all-female vocal group Yemanja, which will present music from Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East. The organist Andrew Johnstone and the soprano Linda Kenny will also be taking part in a programme of music by Practorius, Gabrieli, Adams, Bizet and Tavener; tickets are available from Amnesty International, price £7.

We all have an obscure feeling that music is good for the soul; now comes confirmation from none other than Martin Luther who, in his text Fraw Musica (translatable as Mrs Music), extols the virtues of music and praises its beneficial effect on human beings. To celebrate the 450th anniversary of Luther's death the composer Seoirse Bodley was commissioned by a German choir, the Johann Walter Kantorei from Torgau, with funding from the Arts Council, to write a setting of the text for mezzo-soprano and choir. The work will be unveiled at the Goethe Institute Choir's Christmas concert at the NCR next Wednesday (December 11th), with soloist Aylish Kerrigan and the Hibernian Chamber Orchestra at 8

It's a very approachable work, says the choir's conductor Cait Cooper, "not cerebral to the extent of being at all intimidating. For the other half of the programme we'll be doing another very approachable work,

Beethoven's Mass in C - and Tomas O Suilleabhain, who sings in the choir, has made a setting of some Irish-language carols." Additional soloists for this concert are Orla Boylan, Anthony Kearns, Aran Maree, and the organist Gerard Gillen.

On the same night (December 11th) at the RDS at 8 p.m., the choirs from Christ Church Cathedral - the cathedral choir and the girls' choir - will give a concert of what the cathedral's music director, Mark Duley, succinctly describes as "popular Christmas items from across the centuries" with Festival Brass, a quartet of brass players led by Lesley Bishop, in aid of the charity Alone. Tickets are available from the RDS at £8.

In Belfast, the "cross-community" carol services include Belfast City Council Schools' Carol Service which will feature the Dominican College Choir, the Holy Trinity Boys' Choir and the Wellington College Band, and takes place, also on Wednesday December 11th, at 1 p.m. at the Ulster Hall - ring Belfast 270345 for details. The following evening at 7.30 p.m. many choirs will sing in a torchlight procession from St. Anne's Cathedral to City Hall.

On Thursday December 12th, harassed city-centre shoppers might like to take a break from it all with a few cheery lunchtime carols sung by the Dublin Institute of Technology's Adelaide Singers at Adam & Eve's Franciscan Church on Merchants Quay at 1.15 pm. There will be another afternoon carol session at the Central Library, ILAC Centre on Saturday December 14th at 3 pm. with Dublin Corporation Choir - and would-be carol singers can deck the halls yet again at Christ Church Cathedral on the following Thursday (December 19th), when the singing is in aid of the Liberty Creche, with mulled wine and mince pies to soothe the vocal chords after the concert.

On Thursday December 12th at 8 p.m, the Culwick Choral Society will let its hair down with a family Christmas show featuring the boys from St Bartholomew's Church (conductor Malcolm Wisener) and the Dublin Youth Orchestra (conductor William Halpin), Bryan Hoey doing double duty as both tenor and compere - and, of all things, a musical saw, played by Henry Dagg. "He bills himself as playing `music from the cutting edge'," says the Culwick's conductor Colin Block, "but it's a most expressive instrument - honestly."

A gala lunchtime concert on Friday December 13th in the O'Reilly Hall at University College, Dublin features John Gilhooley, tenor, Owen Gilhooley, baritone, and Blanaid Murphy, accompanist with the University College Dublin Choir, conducted by Grainne Gormley, with the band of the Garda Siochana directed by Superintendent John King in a wide-ranging programme which includes sacred arias, Irish song, Italian song, choral favourites and traditional Christmas classics. Proceeds will go to The Samaritans and the Student Hardship Fund, and tickets are available from the campus bookshop at UCD or McCullough Piggott's of Suffolk Street, price £4.

SATURDAY December 14th sees the inaugural concert of The Lassus Scholars at the National Concert Hall at 8p.m. "My intention," says the director of the new choir, Ite O'Donovan, "would be to have the Lassus Scholars as Dublin's main chamber choir, as the Tallis Scholars are in England; so in order to have a feed of very good young singers I have a junior choir, Piccolo Lasso. And what I'm trying to do there is to give to children - boys and girls of all denominations the sort of musical education they would receive in a cathedral choir school.

The main work for the inaugural concert is Mozart's Coronation Mass with soloists Orla Boylan, Imelda Drumm, John Scott and Jeffrey Ledwidge and the DIT Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra, but there will also be a selection of carols and of course - some short pieces by Lassus. Lassus was a contemporary of Palestrina, but while Palestrina concentrated on church music, Lassus was a more secular and a much more cosmopolitan composer," says Ite O'Donovan. The Lassus Scholars and Piccolo Lasso will also take part in a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Adam & Eve's Franciscan Church on Merchants Quay on Sunday December 19th at 8 p.m., and will perform the Mozart Coronation Mass again at the same venue on Christmas Day at 11.30 a.m.

A charity concert with a difference will be given by the Patrician Musical Society at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on December 14th and 15th at 8 p.m. the programme will include a wide range of operatic and choral favourites and the evening will finish with a selection of carols.

Such is the overwhelming popularity of the Messiah that Bach's glorious Christmas Oratorio is often overlooked; not this year, however, for it will be performed in the National Concert Hall on Sunday December 15th at 8p.m. by Tallaght Choral Society with Fiona Andrew, Deirdre Cooling-Nolan, Niall Morris and Philip O'Reilly as soloists and the orchestra of St Cecilia conducted by Grainne Gormley.

Meanwhile in Cork on December 19th, at 8 p.m. the UCC Choral Concert at St Fin Barr's Cathedral will feature favourite carols and seasonal readings by Sean O Coilleain with the UCC Choir conducted by Helen McConigley.

On the following weekend - December 21st and 22nd at 8 pm. - the NCR will be taken over for two nights by Dublin Count Choir for its family Christmas show, with guests Niamh Murray, soprano, John Dexter, organ, The Stedfast Band with its director Victor Malirsh and the Billie Barry Children. The choir will be performing music from its recently-released CD, Let The Bells Ring, recorded - as conductor Colin Block recalls amid dreadful weather conditions in the depths of last winter.

If you want to see what it's like to be on the radio, there's a Choral Christmas Celebration at the NCR on Sunday December 22nd from 2-3 pm. which will be broadcast to Europe and North America on RTE FM3 via the European Broadcasting Union; it features the National Chamber Choir, conducted by Colin Mawby, in an eclectic programme of music by Poulenc, Howells, O'Cearbhaill and Sweelinck, with the harpist Aine Ni Dhubhaill. "We wanted to put in something that would sound specifically Irish," says Karina Lundstrom of the National Chamber Choir, "so that when people tune in to FM3, they know at once that it's an Irish concert.

"We're also doing some of our favourite pieces, both old and new - we love Poulenc's Christmas music, for instance, and there's a lovely medieval piece called There Is No Rose, which we always find an excuse to do every Christmas." Admission to this concert is free; it starts at 2 p.m. sharp, and tickets can be had from 01-2082047.

AND finally, if you're planning a Christmas visit to one of Dublin's cathedrals, the musical programmes for St Patrick's and Christ Church are as follows: in St Patrick's, there will be a Carols for All at 3.15 pm. on Sunday December 15th, with the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols scheduled for 3.15 p.m. on Sunday December 22nd. That service will be repeated. on Christmas Eve at 4 p.m., but admission is by ticket for Friends of the Cathedral only.

The Christ Church Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols takes place on Monday December 23rd at 8 p.m. and will also be carried live on FM3; tickets should be obtained in advance of December 11th from the cathedral office. On Christmas Eve there will be a midnight performance of Charpentier's Messe de Minuit and, the sung Eucharist at Christ Church on Christmas Day will feature Schubert's Mass in G.