A lucky QC church choir going on 2nd overseas concert tour
Five days after the Fourth, the First Presbyterian Church choir will declare independence from America, in their second overseas tour.
On Saturday, July 9, the Sanctuary Choir of First Presbyterian (1702 Iowa St., Davenport) returns to Europe with a 12-day music outreach tour of Ireland.
About half the 80-member regionally renowned ensemble will sing benefit concerts for local charities in churches, as part of an itinerary that includes stops in Galway, Cork, Kilkenny, Carlow, and Dublin. In Carlow, with whom Davenport maintains a sister-city relationship, the choir will receive an official welcome and reception from the mayor.
In addition to touring and concerts, the choir has partnered with two charity organizations in Ireland — COPE Galway works with the unhoused, victims of domestic abuse, and senior citizens; and the Alice Leahy Trust is a homeless shelter and healthcare service in urban Dublin.
This trip was originally scheduled for summer 2021, but was delayed due to COVID-19, FPC director of music Matt Bishop said Wednesday. Sixty-one people (total) will be traveling in the group, following a successful 11-day tour of Germany in the summer of 2018. The Germany tour (with a smaller group of singers) raised money for refugee resettlement agencies.
“We had a short list of different places we wanted to go,” Bishop said of the group that planned the tour. “Everyone on the committee, when they revealed it to the full choir, it got a lot of excitement.”
The choir’s repertoire for the Emerald Isle concerts features classical church anthems, hymns, spirituals, and a Kenyan hymn, “Wana Baraka,” that’s popular with college choirs, he said.
Also on the programs will be two pieces written specifically for the FPC Sanctuary Choir: a newly-commissioned work by award-winning British composer Jonathan Dove, which the choir premiered in Davenport in October 2021; and a new piece that the choir will premiere in Ireland by John Gere, a local composer and longtime member of the choir.
Bishop approached Dove (a busy, in-demand composer) in 2019 to write for the local choir.
“He’s not written for too many American choirs,” he said. “He writes interesting organ accompaniment. We have both a great organ and great organist. It’s a really fantastic piece, a joy for the choir to learn it and have it in our repertoire.”
FPC organist Alex Gilson (who wasn’t on staff in 2018 for the Germany tour) will be going on the new tour, Bishop said.
Gere has written number of pieces the Sanctuary Choir has sung, including one in Germany that Gere didn’t get to be part of, but he is going to Ireland.
The new one is a benediction piece called “Go in Peace,” Bishop said – “short, but very much John’s style. His personality really comes through,” the director said. “It’s got close chords, controlled dissonance, never in an abrasive way. There are really lovely sounds and lovely text.”
“It says a lot about who he is,” he added, noting it’s dedicated to this choir.
If you would like to support the Irish charitable organizations in advance of the tour, visit the church’s Facebook page for a donation link HERE.
The choir also will post photos during the tour on its social media pages.
