May 2001
Barbara Dagg	Show Menu

Barbara Dagg is a Dubliner. She was educated at the Diocesan School for Girls In Adelaide Road, where one of her music teachers was the late Willie Watson — organist of St Ann’s Dawson St, and so well known to many of the organists of this city. At the age 15, she commenced organ lessons with Peter Sweeney (she was his first pupil) and a year later became organist of Celbridge and Straffan churches — humble beginnings.

After school, she studied music at TCD, finishing with a Mus.B. degree. When Peter Sweeney went off to Switzerland to study with Lionel Rogg, Barbara continued her organ studies with Gerard Gifien, and was his pupil for another sIx years. At 21, she made her organ recital debut in the annual summer recital series at St Michael’s church Dun Laoghaire.

Shortly after gaining her degree and her H. Dip. Ed, she won a scholarship to Germany, where she spent seven years, first at the State Conservatory in Freiburg in the Black Forest (she says she had a ball of a time there!) where she gained a first- class performer’s qualification in Organ, and then at the State Conservatory in Dusseldorf, completing a five-year full-time course to a gain another first-class qualification, in Church Music. German churches are supported by state taxes and organists are paid by the government, and so full-time organists’ posts exist — at major churches and cathedrals.

On returning to Ireland in 1990, she took the position of organist/choir director in Christ Church Taney. Two years later she was appointed as Assistant Organist in Christ Church Cathedral, and a further year after that, became Assistant Sub-Organist in St Patrick’s (simultaneously!). At Christ Church, this involved playing for Sunday services and a weekday Evensong, and accompanying the Cathedral Choir for all cathedral services, in concerts, and on tours. At St Patrick’s, it mainly entailed playing for weekday Mattins, and assisting in the direction of the Cathedral Choir.

After two years of this “double assisting”, along with her teaching and recital work, she had to reduce her workload; she left Christ Church, but remained at St Patrick’s for a further three years, establishing a cathedral girls’ choir there in 1998. She felt that 25 years of church work was a good contribution, that she would like the occasional weekend off, and, while continuing to give organ recitals, would like now to resume her harpsichord playing. She had studied harpsichord with John Beckett before going to Germany and wanted to pick up the thread again. She now owns a harpsichord, and alongside solo work plays continuo.

A prime motivation to return to Ireland was the desire to go on helping the training and support for parish organists. She has tutored on numerous courses for church musicians and as a member of the DCMC (1991—95), she co-designed the course syllabus for the Training Scheme for Church Musicians; currently she stifi tutors on the course.

One of the aims of the DCMC to which Barbara gives particularly strong support is that of improving salary scales for church musicians; while welcoming the fact that in recent years, a good deal of improvement has been achieved, she cautions against complacency. Any parish which finds it difficult to recruit or keep an organist, despite the number being trained, needs to take an in-depth, realistic look at the commitment of time and ancifiary work necessary to do a good job, worthy of offering to Almighty God; and to ensure 1 that the degree of commitment expected does not exceed present-day norms for part-time employment, and that the pay offered bears a reasonable relationship to it.

Currently Barbara teaches at the DIT Conservatory of Music & Drama, at the Church of Ireland College of Education and privately. She has given many organ recitals here m the UK Germany and Australia, and is making plans for a first concert appearance in the USA. Last summer she gave the premier performance in Germany and in Dublin of a new Irish work, “Cantus Firmus and Three Reflections upon the Art of the Master”, which, aided by an Arts Council grant, she had commissioned from Dublin composer Melanie Brown, for the Bach tribute year 2000.

Finding sufficient time for practice during term-time is difficult and usually no more than one or two hours per day are possible; out of term, and especially coming closer to recital deadlines. Barbara practises for five or six hours per day. Routinely, she practises on the organs where she teaches, at the CICE and in Sandford Parish Church, and she has access to larger instruments when need arises, through the hospitality of other organists.

Apart from organ music, she loves to listen to Gershwin, Faure, Brahms, Howells, John Tavener, Arvo Part, and Gorecki; and as a hobby she builds a piano repertoire for parties of Gershwin songs, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, etc., for the sheer fun of it.

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