Choir
Our choir is a talented and diverse group of singers made up of parish volunteers. Open to anyone high school-aged or older, no audition is required to join us in offering a joyful musical expression of your faith alongside other parishioners of varying experience, age, and vocal range.
Rehearsals take place on Thursday evenings from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. in our Choir Room. Rehearsals typically consist of some warmups that prepare our voices both for vowel production healthy sound production before moving into rehearsing upcoming hymns and anthems. Choir members sing at both our 9:00 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. services as their schedules allow, and with pre-service rehearsals at 8:30 a.m. and 10:40 a.m. respectively.
If you or anyone you know might wish to be part of our choir, please encourage them to join us for a no-commitment rehearsal or two with this talented and welcoming group!
Organs
Schantz Organ Company
Orrville, Ohio
III/33
The original pipe organ at St. John’s Church was located in the balcony and was hand-pumped. Around 1890, it was replaced by a Barckhoff pipe organ (Pomeroy, Ohio) in the front of the nave. This was a two-manual organ with 16 ranks (8 Great, 6 Swell, and 2 Pedal). The manuals were tracker action and the pedals were pneumatic action. In 1968, AW Brandt & Company combined the Barckhoff with a Möller Artiste that had been purchased from an Episcopal church in Cincinnati. The resulting instrument retained 7 ranks from the Barckhoff Great, replaced the Swell with 4 ranks from the Möller, had a Pedal division that had one rank each from the Barckhoff and the Möller (a total of 807 pipes), and used the Möller console. A new windchest was built by AW Brandt.
The present organ is a three-manual instrument with 33 ranks and 1,952 pipes that was custom built for St. John’s by the Schantz Organ Company of Orrville, Ohio. It was installed in 1983 and dedicated in March of 1984.
Harrison & Harrison LTD
Durham, England
I/8
In Summer 2021, St. John’s was fortunate enough to install a 1-manual tracker-action organ from Harrison & Harrison in our balcony. The newly installed instrument is the first organ from this builder in the central Ohio area. The organ will allow the choir to do pieces requiring two organs as well as antiphonal, and it will provide stellar support for chamber music. This organ was originally located at First Scots Independent Presbyterian Church of Beaufort, SC and was relocated to St. John’s by Peebles-Herzog of Columbus, OH.
Manual
- Stopped Diapason 8
- Principal 4
- Block Flute 2
- Sesquialtera 12.17
- Quartane:19.22
- Pedal
- Bourdon 16
- Manual to Pedal