The Carmelite Church at Whitefriar Street, Dublin ran a very successful recital series on the Sunday evenings of May, featuring the church’s famous Kenneth Jones pipe organ, one of the very best in Ireland.

According to the Prior of Whitefriar Street, Fr Simon Nolan, O. Carm., attendance was extremely good, well up on numbers attending before the pandemic. Organists from both the Catholic and Anglican cathedrals were among those who played. Being the month of May, recitals featured organ music and plainchant (sung by members of Dublin’s Palestrina Choir) in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The final recital of the series included one fairly unique element, combining as it did music and the visual arts. Of Russian, French, and German background, Aleksandr Nisse is organist of Dublin’s Catholic cathedral and the leading practitioner in Ireland of the art of organ extemporization in the French School. During his recital, on May 28, he improvised a set of meditations on Whitefriar Street Church's four windows, depicting the Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by the renowned Irish stained glass artist, William Earley (1872-1956). The windows, in turn, depict: The Annunciation, The Visitation, The Nativity, and The Assumption.