FRIDAY night's concert at the National Concert Hall was a fundraiser for the Sisters of Mercy. In particular it was for the restoration of the mid19th century Telford organ in the sisters' Baggot Street chapel, now part of the Mercy International Centre, which is intended as a future venue for charity concerts. A large body of soloists and groups contributed to the concert, and the wheeling on and off the stage was oiled by the cultivated contributions of the presenter, Gerard Gillen.
The largest group was the Lassus Scholars and its youth section, Piccolo Lasso, both directed by Ile O'Donovan, who also produced the concert. This recently formed group has good voices, but on the evidence of this concert has some way to go in forming a homogeneous sound, clean in pitch and attack, and focused in tone. It was at its best in a sturdy performance of Praise Him With The Sound Of The Trumpet, written by John Buckley in 1984.
Given the concert's general entertainment atmosphere, the greatest impact was made by the most stylistically direct music. Hasselmans's quintessential harp piece La source was elegantly played by Geraldine O'Doherty. Marion Ingoldsby's Waterscape (1994) came across well from David O'Doherty (violin) and Deborah Kelleher (piano). Franck's ubiquitous Panis Angelicus was sung in an appealing, unsentimental and natural way by 13 year old Ros Ni Dhubhain, to the rarely heard original accompaniment of violin, harp and organ. Doreen Curren held the stage with her haunting, unaccompanied singing of She Moved Through the Fair. And Paul McKeever (organ) gave a vigorous, well registered, though rhythmically loose performance of Dupre's Prelude and Fugue in B.
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