Sharon Carty, mezzo-soprano
John O'Keeffe, organ

Annual Organ Recital Series in Whitefriar Street Church || Sunday 5th May at 7pm || Entrance free with a retiring collection

O mysterium ineffabile
J.F. Lalouette (1651–1728)

Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564
J.S. Bach (1685–1750)

O Domina Nostra, Op. 55
H.M. Górecki (1933–2010)

Prélude, Adagio et Choral varié sur le thème du ‘Veni Creator’, Op.4
M. Duruflé (1902–1986)

O sacrum convivium
O. Messiaen (1908–1992)

Irish mezzo-soprano SHARON CARTY has firmly established a reputation as a respected interpreter of both early and contemporary works, alongside maintaining a busy schedule in mainstream opera and concert repertoire. She is an alumna of the RIAM Dublin, MDW Vienna, and Oper Frankfurt Young Artist Programme, and has been an Artistic Partner to Irish National Opera since the company began in 2018. She is the 2023/2024 Artist in residence for the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

Regularly praised for her musicality and intelligence, her integrity as an artist and the warmth, clarity and agility of her voice, her opera repertoire includes many of the important lyric and coloratura mezzosoprano roles, such as Hänsel, Dido, Ruggiero, Dorabella, Cherubino, Ariodante, Orfeo (Gluck) and Sesto (Handel). On the concert platform her repertoire spans most of the major sacred concert works, including all the principal works of J.S Bach as well as Messiah, Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor, and a broad song repertoire in addition to numerous chamber music works. She is also a dedicated song recitalist, most recently appearing in performances with pianists Finghin Collins, Jonathan Ware and Graham Johnson.

Career highlights to date include London and Amsterdam opera debuts with The Second Violinist at the Barbican Theatre, and Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, her Wexford Festival Opera debut as Lucy Talbot in the European première of William Bolcom’s Dinner at Eight, the title role in Irish National Opera’s critically acclaimed Orfeo ed Euridice and her Italian debut at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, where she premiered a new opera, Proserpine by Silvia Colasanti, to critical acclaim. The 2021/2022 season saw her giving world premieres of David Coonan’s “Horse Ape Bird” with INO, Deirdre Gribbin’s “The Stones of Life” with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and Anne Marie O’Farrell’s and Ed Vulliamy’s new civil war cantata “Who’d ever think it would come to this?” with the RTE CO, as well as concerts of Mozart and Bach with La Toscanini in Parma.
Highlights for 2023 included a Northern Irish tour of Boccherini’s Stabat Mater with the Fews Ensemble, a recital with Fiachra Garvey in the Walled City Music Festival Derry, and Dorabella in INO’s new production of Cosi fan tutte.
The 2023/2024 season began with a concert tour of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, continuing with the opening concert of the Sligo Baroque Festival, Mozart and George Benjamin in Nîmes at the Les Volques Festival, as well as further concerts with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and her company debut with Blackwater Valley Opera as Sesto in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. 2024 also sees the release of two CD of songs of C.V.Stanford celebrating the centenary of the composer’s death, with pianist Finghin Collins for the SOMM label, and with the BBC CO and John Andrews for Resonus Classics as well as promotional concerts in Ireland and Switzerland.

A regular collaborator with orchestras across Europe, her discography includes La Traviata on Naxos DVD with the NDR Radiophilharmonie alongside Thomas Hampson and Marina Rebeka as well as The Mountebanks (Gilbert/Cellier) on CD with the BBC Concert Orchestra/John Andrews. Her most recent CD, a disc of Schubert songs with pianist Jonathan Ware, was released to critical acclaim in May 2020.

JOHN O’KEEFFE is Director of Sacred Music at the National Seminary of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, where his duties include lecturing, training of cantors, choir and organists, and the preparation of music for college liturgies. As Maynooth University’s Director of Choral Groups, he conducts the University Choral society and oversees the activities of the Maynooth University Chamber Choir, The Maynooth Schola Gregoriana (a joint SPCM/MU project) and the Maynooth University female choir, ‘Altus’.
Prior to his appointment to Maynooth, he was Choirmaster at St. Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, having already served as Organ Scholar of Westminster Cathedral and Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral. His organ teachers have included Rev. Frank McNamara, David Sanger, Ben Van Oosten and Gerard Gillen. A recent Theology graduate of SPPU, he holds Master’s degrees in Organ (MU) and Chant Performance (UL) and his doctoral thesis was on the liturgical output of Seán and Peadar Ó Riada.
Active also as a liturgical composer (his Mass of Saint Mel was commissioned in 2015 to mark the restoration of Longford Cathedral), he directs postgraduate and diploma courses in liturgical music and chant at both St. Patrick’s College and Maynooth University. His monograph on The Masses of Seán and Peadar Ó Riada was published in 2017 by Cork University Press. In 2021, he was awarded a Knighthood of St Gregory by the Holy See in recognition of his services to Irish Church Music.