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Music Update, Advent and Christmas, 2024

The choir and handbells are hard at work preparing music for the holiday season.  Why not consider joining us in January as a New Year’s resolution?  Musicians have a lot of fun doing their hard, ongoing work, and gain a lot from it personally and spiritually.

The handbell choir, the Emmaus Ringers, rehearses in the Sanctuary on Thursdays at 6:30.  They are followed by the Choir, which meets in the Parlor at 7:30.

Instrumentalists!

If you play a musical instrument, and would like to play as part of a Christian worship service in a historic church with a reputation for sacred music, let Jonathan know!  We welcome enthusiastic volunteers who wish to share their gifts.  Again…a New Year’s resolution!

Organ Recitals

First Presbyterian Church in Goshen is continuing its successful ongoing organ recital series.  

Please come on Tuesdays at 12:15 for half an hour of delightful and varied music.

NOTE:  NO ORGAN RECITAL ON CHRISTMAS EVE, DEC. 24.
ALSO:  NO ORGAN RECITAL ON NEW YEAR’S EVE, DEC. 31.  

Programs are intended for every Tuesday.  Exceptions would only involve major holidays like Christmas and New Year’s Day, weather, or illness!  The programs are FREE, there is ample parking, and the Sanctuary is accessible if you enter at the side “Office” entrance, or call ahead for assistance.

The principal artist for the series is Jonathan B. Hall, who oversees the music ministries of the congregation.  An experienced recitalist and gifted public speaker, he has performed throughout the United States and abroad, and loves sharing his comprehensive knowledge of, and appreciation for, organ and keyboard literature.

Come and enjoy!

Advent and Christmas 2024

Ordinary Time (as if any time were ordinary!) continues up to the celebration of Christ the King on Sunday, November 23, and the end of the liturgical cycle.  The new cycle begins with the First Sunday of Advent, December 1.  As you celebrate Thanksgiving on November 28, remember the start of Advent and the preparation for Christmas, and think of the needy.  The Revised Common Lectionary calls the new liturgical cycle “Year C.” It’s not “the church’s new year’s,” though it’s always nice to observe the lectionary cycle starting afresh!

The purple and pink candles of the Advent wreath evoke a time of waiting and personal preparation for the coming of Christ.

Children’s Music

Children’s music, a component of Sunday school, is also under Jonathan’s direction.  In the past year, we sang special tributes for Mother’s Day, a fun Palm Sunday anthem, and learned the spiritual “Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow” for Christmas!  It’s hoped that a sacred music component will be a feature of upcoming Confirmation classes as well…stay tuned!

Music at First Presbyterian

The First Presbyterian Church in Goshen, New York has a long tradition of musical excellence.  The roots of this ministry go to the church’s founding in 1720.  From its severe Calvinist origins, with the practice of unaccompanied psalm singing, the church has developed into a home for the arts and sacred music.

Since 2016, this ministry has been led by Jonathan B. Hall, who came to live in Orange County that year. From March 2020 to November 2021 he also served as producer of the church’s online worship services.  His family history includes a long line of Presbyterians, lay and clergy.

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Dr. Hall is a native of New York City, and studied organ and sacred music in Chicago and at Indiana University.  He is also a seminary graduate with a strong foundation in theology and liturgy. His teachers have included some of the best sacred musicians in America.  He brings an unusual breadth of education and experience to the job, not only with his religious training but also with advanced degrees in literature and music.  He is experienced with the music, and the worship ethos, of several Protestant denominations as well as Catholic and Reform Jewish traditions.

A keyboardist (organ, harpsichord, and piano), choral conductor, theory teacher, lyric baritone, recorder player, and occasional composer, Hall is both a Fellow and a Choir Master of the American Guild of Organists; he is a member of the Central Hudson Valley Chapter and has previously chaired the national Committee on Professional Certification. He is a Fellow of Trinity College London and a member of ASCAP and of Pi Kappa Lambda.