MUSIC AT REDEEMER
Welcome to Worship with Music at Redeemer
Redeemer’s music program is an important and meaningful part of our life together. Our adult Gallery Choir, comprised of volunteers and music scholars from local universities, typically leads our Sunday morning worship. Guest instrumentalists sometimes accompany our organ during special liturgies.
The Gallery Choir sings each Sunday from September through May. Rehearsals are held weekly on Thursday evenings at 7:30 PM. All singers are welcome to join; the ability to read music is not required. Dwight Graham directs the group and plays the organ.
Annually the choir presents an extraordinary Service of Lessons and Carols in the tradition of Kings College, Cambridge, during Advent. The choir also presents special evening services of Choral Evensong.
Dwight Graham is our Interim
Director of Music
The Organ
The world-renowned Kenneth Jones & Associates of Bray, Ireland, designed and built our custom organ. This instrument is one of just 180 like it in use in cathedrals, churches, schools, universities, and concert halls across the globe. This instrument included two manuals, 12 ranks of pipes, and 12 stops. Among the many hallmarks of these instruments are their richly inventive cases, layouts, and mechanisms.
Kenneth Jones himself spent weeks at Redeemer supervising the organ’s installation of the various components, a process that demanded a reconfiguration of the music gallery. The completed organ was dedicated in 1993.
Shortly after its installation, Redeemer hosted organ concerts by Felix Hell and Roger Nyquist, and thereafter, we have hosted student performances from local high schools and colleges. In addition to Sunday and special services, the organ has been used with the Gallery choir and instruments for special concerts of works including Mozart’s “Mass in C,” Rheinberger’s “Mass in C,” and Mendelssohn’s cantata “As the Hart Pants.”
By 2005, the Allen Organ Company was asked to enhance the sound by adding a four manual console and 80 digitally sampled pipe works. In this process, the original Tracker mechanism was changed to a direct electric action. The combination of pipes and digital sampling classifies this instrument as a hybrid instrument. This significantly increased the versatility of the organ, and the result is the marvelous sound we hear today.
