Gabriel’ Fauré’s stirring, and luminous requiem is a beautiful reflection of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. Come hear the wonderful Chancel Choir, accompanied by our 21 rank 1861 Johnson pipe organ, beautifully restored by the Muller company in 2004. Fauré’s celestial work almost shimmers with vocal color and sound. Come Good Friday as we observe this holiest of days.

The Project continues with one of Beethoven’s most romantic and well loved sonatas, the Moonlight! Along with this you will hear another of the early sonatas, the charming Opus 2 #2 in A major along with two shorter sonatas.

Come celebrate Valentines Day early with one of the most romantic works written for the piano.

Join in the Christmas festivities as First Presbyterian’s own Chancel Choir, Festivo Bells and Angel Choir present two concerts welcoming in this joyous time of year.

6pm will feature the Chancel Choir, Festivo handbell Choir playing their new 6 octave set of MalMark Bells, as well as members of the Newark-Granville Youth Sumphony.

At 7pm The Angel Choir will perform along with help from Denison Ladies’ Night Out, directed by Joy Hire.

Please join us for a special service as our very own Festivo Handbell Choir ring in the sounds of our new 6 octave set of MalMark Handbells. The bells will ring throughout the service as we begin a new season of ringing these beautiful bells that will range in size from deep bass of the Aluminum G2 to the very high and small E8. These bells will enrich our services and concerts for years to come! Please join us in welcoming them to First Presbyterian.

Come hear our very own Chancel Choir sing this exciting work by Glenn McClure. We will be accompanied by members of the Winchester Steel Ensemble based in Canal Winchester. A mass accompanied by Steel Drum, percussion and piano. What more is needed for an exciting World Communion Sunday? Service begins at 10am.

Mr. McClure’s compositional work has driven partnerships between scientists and artists. He recently composed a work for choir and string quartet for the European Space Agency. He worked closely with scientists and mathematicians from the Rosetta Mission to transform orbital data into melodies and harmonies. His music has been featured on several national broadcasts including a 2006 edition of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” This story explored his partnership with bestselling author Dava Sobel (Galileo’s Daughter, 1999) that resulted in The Starry Messenger: An Oratorio based on the Letters of Galileo’s Daughter for choir, lute, recorder and string quartet.

Furthermore, his “Santo” from St. Francis in the Americas: A Caribbean Mass was featured in the 2005 broadcast of Enter the Light, the CBS Christmas Special. Mr. McClure’s musical setting of “Cantico di Frate Sole” is featured in Francis of Assisi, The Great Courses (www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/francis-of-assisi.html), with lectures by Dr. William Cook and Dr. Ronald Herzman.

The Piano Sonata project continues with a continuation of Beethoven’s not often heard but lyrical sonata in F sharp major and the breathtaking Waldstein sonata. There will be a brief lecture discussing the sonatas prior to the performance.

First Presbyterian’s try own Chancel and Festivo Handbell Choirs will present an afternoon of choral and handbell works. Spirituals, folksongs, broadway, Hollywood and more! Hope you will come hear much loved favorite and beloved songs.

Soprano Kate Meryman returns to Music for Sacred Spaces. She will present a beautiful program of songs from the Great American Songbook opening with Irving Berlin’s wonderful song, Let Me Sing and I’m Happy. Originally from the Washington D.C. area, Kate has been labelled an “impressive singing-actress” by Broadway World Washington DC. Kate has performed various musical theatre roles including Johanna (Sweeney Todd), Elle Woods (Legally Blonde), Cinderella (Into the Woods), over 60 performances of Cosette (Les Misérables), and Narrator (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) for which she was nominated for a Washington Area Theatre Community Honors Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical. Concert work includes soprano soloist for Handel’s Messiah at Bluffton University, Faure’s Requiem with St. Veronica Catholic Church Adult Choir, and guest soloist with the Lancaster Chorale.

Starting the 2023 year off will be a 4-year series in which all 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven will be performed. The final performance will culminate in 2027 , the 200 year anniversary of the death of classical music’s greatest composer. On the program includes his very first published Sonata as well as the lesser known Fantasie Sonata Op. 27. No. 1.

This Christmas Season, we invite you to come listen Sunday morning as the Chancel Choir presents a morning filled with music by the gifted composer Joel Raney from his stirring Cantata; Love Came Down at Christmas. This cantata reflects on the four weeks of Advent while weaving Carols of the season throughout! Please come and celebrate Christ’s birth with us!

Come hear our annual concerts as we celebrate the Christmas season as one community. At 6pm you will hear First Presbyterian’s own Festivo Bells ring out carols of the season along with the Chancel Choir and members of the Newark-Granville Youth Symphony. At 7pm The Angel Choir will present Christmas music along with Denison University’s very own Ladies Night Out acapella group. Come join us! Cookies and hot chocolate will be served in our Heritage Hall as folks come and go in and out of the cold.

Come Sunday morning for a special performance by the Chancel and Angel Choirs as they perform several movements of Schubert’s beloved Mass for orchestra and choir, his Mass in G. Long considered one of his most popular and enduring works for chorus, this mass is Schubert at his lyrical best. Special soloists will be featured singers from The Angel and Chancel Choirs. This performance will take place during the morning worship hour.

Every other June, high school members of First Presbyterian’s Angel Choir embark on a six-day Summer Singing Tour, performing in churches, retirement communities and schools. Their traditional send-off concert, directed by Joy Hire and accompanied this year by pianist and Angel Choir alumnus Logan Rees, includes sacred and secular pieces to be sung on their tour through New England and the Mid-Atlantic and culminating with Sunday morning worship at the historic Navy Chapel in Annapolis, Md.

The “Angels Away” program includes arrangements of sacred hymns and seasonal anthems First Presbyterian’s youth choir has sung throughout the last year, such as “I Sing the Mighty Power of God” and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” The concert also will feature anthems by popular composers John Rutter, Natalie Sleeth, Mark Hayes, Gwyneth Walker, and Elaine Hagenberg, as well as the Kyrie from Schubert’s Mass No. 2 in G.

Enjoy the beauty of these youthful voices and wish our choristers Godspeed on their journey.

To a jewelry maker, findings are bits of stuff they use in their craft - not the centerpiece gems or festoons, but just as essential to the finished piece. These quartets by Hailstork, Perkinson and Beethoven show composers working freely from hymn tunes found in vastly different traditions

Adolpuhus Hailstork: Quartet No. 2. Variations on “Sing Low, Sweet Chariot”

Coleridge Taylor Perkinson: Quartet No. 1 “Calvary”

Ludwig van Beethoven: Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2, “Rasumovsky”

Each year in early December, First Presbyterian Church offers its music to the community during Granville’s Christmas Candlelight Walking Tour. As is the tradition, the church’s singers and ringers, along with a number of special guest musicians, will present a program filled with a wide range of beautiful Advent and Christmas anthems and carols. The choirs have been working hard to prepare for this performance that has become a village favorite year in and year out.

The concert is held in the church’s sanctuary located on the second floor of the building. Stairways at the church’s main entrance facing Broadway lead to the sanctuary, and there is an accessible elevator located near the church office on the first floor.

You won’t want to miss this enjoyable and entertaining springboard into the holiday season!

Schedule

5:30 p.m. — The Children’s Choir directed by Carol Koch Worrell

6 p.m. — The Chancel Choir and Festivo Bells with members of Newark-Granville Youth Symphony directed by Philip Everingham; and

7pm - The Angel Choir directed by Joy Hire and accompanied by Meredith Needham with Denison University student a cappella groups Ladies’ Night Out and The Denison Hilltoppers

Matt Bickett regularly performs throughout the United States and Europe as organist and harpsichordist. Equally at home with historic and contemporary music, Matt centers his performances around historically informed playing styles and techniques. Reviewers have described his performances as “rare and interesting” (ClevelandClassical) and “masterfully negotiated” (Bloomington Herald Times), and his playing has been recognized with a first prize in the 2017 Quimby Competition for young organists. Recordings of his performances have been featured on Pipedreams, American Public Media’s nationally syndicated radio program.