After a well-deserved rest following our performance of Stainer’s Crucifixion during Holy Week, the choir has begun preparing for one final special event—a service of Choral Matins on Trinity Sunday, 12 June, to mark the end of the choir term. Surviving copies of music from Sandford of more than a century ago show that Choral Matins was once a regular Sunday-morning liturgy, but nowadays it is rarely used anywhere in the Church of Ireland, with the exception of one or two cathedrals that maintain the traditional liturgy. I can hardly think of a more appropriate occasion than Trinity Sunday to sing Dublin native Charles Villiers Stanford’s colourful and uplifting setting of the Te Deum in B-flat—or his setting of Mrs Alexander’s translation of St Patrick’s Breastplate.
We have been delighted to welcome a couple of new members to the choir recently, including my distinguished predecessor, Ken Shellard, who has recently moved into the Mageough, and has joined the bass-line. Ken was organist of St Philip’s from 1961 until 1974, and organist of Sandford from 1987 (and St Philip’s from 1988) until 2003. The Shellards have a long association with music in Sandford: Ken’s grandfather Harry C. Shellard (1874–1955) was organist from 1894 until 1900. David O’Shea