Worship at Center Church includes many opportunities for congregational singing. Hymns, psalm settings, spirituals, folksongs, gospel music, world music, and responses are chosen to relate to themes of the day or specific scripture readings. New tunes and texts are taught so that we may become familiar with them, thereby allowing us to offer our best to God.
The Center Church Choir
The Center Church Choir is a semi-professional ensemble that rehearses Wednesday evenings and sings the worship service each Sunday morning, mid-September through mid-May. In addition, the choir sings at other important services during the year. Professional singers from the Hartford area join volunteers to explore and present the power and subtlety of choral music. In that process, the choir develops as an intimate community within the larger body of the congregation. In keeping with the ever-expanding tradition of great music for the church, the choir learns and offers a wide range of anthems, responses, and larger works. The choir often presents a concert at some point during the choir season. If you are interested in learning more about or singing with the choir, or if you would like to know more details about the larger music ministry of Center Church, please contact Jason Charneski, director of music and the arts, at jasoncharneski@centerchurchhartford.net.
Center Church’s great pipe organ, built in 1954 by Hartford’s own Austin Organs, Inc., contains 3,773 pipes. It utilizes many pipes from two previous instruments: a 1907 Austin and an 1883 Roosevelt. The case and façade pipes are from the church’s second organ, built by Thomas Appleton in 1835 (The church’s first organ was installed in 1822). For a more detailed history of Center Church’s organs, click here…
The organ’s primary role is to support congregational singing and accompany the choir, made all the more possible due to a recent upgrade of the organ’s control system (click here for the organ’s stoplist). The instrument’s size and dynamic range make it capable of rendering all styles and periods of organ repertoire. Center Church also owns two Steinway grand pianos: the older, located in the Church House, was built in 1887; the younger, located in the Meeting House, likely was built in the 1910s or early 1920s (the exact year is not able to be known), with refursbishments having occurred in the mid 1960s and again in 1997. A two-manual harpsichord, built in 1976 by William Dowd, is located in the Meeting House.
Center Church also owns a battery of hand percussion instruments (tambourine, finger cymbals, conga drums, claves, etc.) that enhance the rendering of music from different ethnic traditions and geographical areas. In addition, volunteer and professional instrumentalists occasionally lend their talents to musical expression in worship.
