My last mass performance with the Chorvereinigung St Augustine in the Universitatskirche. The choir is a mixture of professional, semi professional and amateur singers and produces a fantastic sound in a magnificent setting performing a Viennese Mass every Sunday morning and on high days.
The interior of the basilica at Maria Taferl, completed in 1738 was designed initially by Georg Gerstenbrand, Imperial Viennese architect with subsequent additions by Carlo Lurago and Jakob Prandtauer in the late Austrian baroque style.
On Saturday around 70 singers and musicians, me included, departed Vienna on a coach destined for Maria Taferl, a pilgrimage village and church west of Melk along the Danube Valley. The setting was fantastic, as was the wedding and church, the bride and groom both being members of the Austrian aristocracy, although the use of titles is formally banned in the republic. We sang Mozarts Coronation Mass, an Austrian favorite and best of all received a wage, an unusual concept in an Austrian Church choir!
The central Hof at the benedictine abbey of Melk. Designed by Jakob Praudtauer and completed in 1736, it is one of the richest baroque abbeys in central Europe with an imposing monastery Kirche and a library containing 2,000 volumes form the 9th to 15th Centuries alone.
The monastery acquired its current baroque overcoat after the final defeat of the Turks in the late C17th which allowed the Hapburg's to remodel palaces, monasteries and churches that originally had to be fortified, hence Melk abbey's strategic setting.
Originating from the Cotswolds Niall completed his degree in architecture at the University of Portsmouth, where he was nominated for the RIBA Presidents Medal Awards, before undertaking a placement year at the Bristol based architectural practice Alec French. He returned to Portsmouth in 2009 to read for a diploma in architecture, receiving the SPAB's Philip Webb Award for his first semester project, before completing a semester abroad at the Technical University in Vienna, studying architectural design and architecture theory with Will Alsop and Kari Jormakka respectively.
Amongst a broad appreciation and enthusiasm for architecture specific interests within the subject area include; architectural history and theory, building conservation and the theory concerning the application of new interventions within existing built contexts.
