MUSIC

Music is an integral and essential part of worship at St. John's. Our music program is known for its excellent quality and distinctive style. Our volunteer choir leads the congregation in a wide range of music, from traditional Anglican and Episcopal hymns to medieval chants and Renaissance motets to American folk music and spirituals, to music written by our music director, Tom Conroy. St. John’s is also home to a number of concerts throughout the year, for example by the San Francisco Early Music Society.




Choir
The choir consists of volunteer members, and its main focus is to support congregational singing at the 10:15 am liturgy on Sundays. Generally, the choir also prepares an anthem to be sung at the start of communion. The choir meets every Sunday morning for rehearsal is from 8:45-10 am. Throughout the church year, the choir also sings for special events such as the Advent Lessons and Carols as well as Holy Week services. Anyone who loves to sing and can blend with their fellows is welcome to join the choir.

Youth Orchestra and Chorus of Sts. Francis and Clare
Some Sundays, our children join in making music, playing instruments and singing. It's an informal kind of thing, which makes it more fun. Rehearsal takes place during the first half of our Sunday morning service, with music typically offered duirng Communion.


The Instruments
The M. P. Möller/DeCamp Organ 
The large mechanical action organ near the front of the church was originally built by the M. P. Möller Organ Company of Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1902 for a church in Davenport, Iowa. (It is a little-known fact that Moller built more tracker organs than any other 20th-century American organ builder.) In the early 1980s, St. John's purchased the organ, and it was moved to the Rosales shop in Los Angeles, where John DeCamp, a parishioner of St. John's, painstakingly renovated it. Much of the old pipework was used, and much was also added to expand the tonal scope of the organ. Many parishioners of the church helped in this project, which was completed in 1984. Though its most comfortable period is romantic, it is now a very eclectic organ which works well for many styles of organ music, from Buxtehude and Bach to Mendelssohn to Messiaen.

 
Photo: Charles Rus, long-time musician at St. John's, tuning the Möller/DeCamp pedal reeds.

The specification is as follows:

Great
Lieblich Gedackt 16'
Open Diapason 8'
Doppelflute 8'
Octave 4'
Fifteenth 2' and Mixture (double draw)
Trumpet 8'
 
Pedal
Bourdon 16'
Open Bass 8'
Choral Bass 4'
Trombone 16'
Trumpet 8'
Swell
Gedackt 8'
Gemshorn8'
Fugara 4'
Waldflute 4'
Nasard and Tierce (double draw)
Flageolet 2' and Sharp Mixture (double draw)
Oboe 8'
Normal couplers
Tremulant affecting entire organ
Well temperment (including a pure third in C major)



Steinway Piano
St. John's piano is an historic Hamburg Steinway, Model O, built in Germany in 1911. 

Photos: M. Cousins; K. Leibenath.