Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Established in 1716, a Colonial Parish

A parish of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

 


The Reverend Julia McKeon, Priest

Dr. Henry M. Richards, Senior Warden

Michael T. Kevane, Organist/Choirmaster

For worship times, map & driving directions click here

 

Saint Andrew's buildings are open for public worship

 

 

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Support Saint Andrew's by giving online!

 

 

Saint Andrew's is fully open and live.  Please join us at the church!


50 York Street
Lambertville, NJ 08530

ph: (609) 577-7668

kevaneandco@yahoo.com

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  • Current Music List 2021-2022
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    • Music List 2019-2020
    • Music List 2018-2019
    • Music List 2017-2018
    • Music List 2016-2017
    • Music List 2015-2016
    • Music List 2014-2015
    • Music List 2013-2014
    • Music List 2012-2013
    • Music List 2011-2012
  • The Virtual Choir
  • Choral Evensong
  • Bach Cantatas in Sunday Liturgies
  • Concerts at Saint Andrew's
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Music At Saint Andrew’s CHURCH

 

SDG

Soli in Deo Gloria!

"To the Glory of God Alone!"


The Choir at Saint Andrew’s

Saint Andrew’s Church is well known for the excellence of its music program - first spiritually and then musically.  Though it must be said we are musically amazing.

All the good work of this fellowship-within-a-fellowship is dedicated solely to the Glory of God ("Soli in Deo Gloria" in Latin).

Every manuscript that J.S. Bach finished ended with the letters "SDG".  We like to follow that example as we work together.  We are people who work together.

The Choir at Saint Andrew's Church is an integral part of the Liturgy at Saint Andrew's Church.  We see music and Liturgy as two parts of the same "whole". It is our understanding that music and Liturgy are "one" and should be best viewed as two sides of the same coin.  The Saint Andrew's choir works very hard to achieve this end.

Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church welcomes musicians and all their work.  By doing so we hope to celebrate God's creativity as expressed in the lives of men and women. We believe that art both nurtures and challenges the soul and points us toward the Divine, the one and only true God.

At the heart of the Saint Andrews choir are several professional singers who serve to lead approximately sixteen very talented volunteers.  The principal duties of the Saint Andrew's Choir are the singing of the 9:30 AM Choral Eucharist on Sunday mornings, special services such as Choral Evensong and Lessons & Carols for Chistmas as well as Ash Wednesday and Holy Week Services. The choir sings each week from the beginning of September until about the middle of June.  The Choir sings through the entire Academic year.  The Choir at Saint Andrew's is an Academic choir.

  • Join the Saint Andrew's Choir's Email List - receive the same emails that are sent out regularily to the choir.  It is a great way to follow last minute changes. Many people who are not a part of the choir enjoy receiving these emails.
  • To Join the Saint Andrew's Choir - and for more information on how to volunteer click on this link.  Please follow this link if you love straight tone singing.
  • Hymn #657 - Love divine, all loves excelling.

    Hymns often present the most powerful secondary texts in the Liturgy, and, as such, are usually the most important musical items in the Liturgy.  Hymns are the voice of the people enabled by the choir.  Here is one of our favorites.
  • The Choir of Saint Andrew's regulariy presents portions of Bach Canatas during the Sunday morning liturgy with baroque orchestra.  Here is a recent example, the first movement from Cantata No. 80, Ein' fest burg.
  • Hear my prayer, O Lord -- Henry Purcell  Sung at Sunday service on Epiphany 4, January 31, 2016.
  • Do not be afraid - Philip Stopford - as sung during Holy Eucharist.

  • Kyrie (from Messe Solonnelle) by Loius Vierne.  The choir of Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church at the 9:30 am choral service on February 28, 2016. 
  • O Nata Lux by Thomas Tallis - Sung by the choir of Saint Andrew’s in rehearsal

  • Ave Jesu Christe by Peter Philips.  From Sunday morning liturgy November 10, 2013.  Anthem sung by double quartet (SATB-SATB)

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    The Organ at Saint Andrew’s


    Hook & Hastings 1892 (built in the 1880's)

    The organ at Saint Andrew’s Church is one of the great pearls of the East Coast, indeed, of the Americas. It is a virtually untouched, historic, and in all senses of the word, tonally exquisite, Hook & Hastings pipe organ built in the 1880's and installed in the "new" church in 1892. The organ at Saint Andrew’s is most likely the most important organ between New York and Philadelphia to this very day. In fact, aside from the Ernest Skinner installations in Philadelphia, there are no other organs in either city that approach the tonal perfection of the organ at Saint Andrew's, Lambertville. But even these Skinner installations have been compromised, whereas this Hook & Hastings installation has not. The organ at St. Andrew's may be the most beautiful organ within at least a 100 mile radius of it. In fact, in many ways, one would have to travel to Europe to find a more satisfying organ installation.

    In the basement of St. Andrew's you will still find the original "water engine" that first ran the organ. Currently we lack the funds to restore its exquisitely silent running function. Water engines are free of the noise associated with electric motors and provide a haunting quiet that is associated with organs that played in times when the world itself was more quiet - a world before electricity and the internal combustion engine.  This water engine was powered by the old hydraulic water line that powered the once-famous "tatting" mills of Lambertville. These are the mills that built the beautiful City that we see today. It is the only known intact water engine still associated with its original Hook & Hastings organ in the world. There have been no significant tonal alterations or additions to the pipework since it was installed in 1892. While, when it was first built, there were many installations of its like in both Philadelphia and New York, these others have been wiped out by "improvements" in the following decades. The simple fact is, these "improvements" were not that at all, they were most often rewrites of the worst possible type; they overwrote the genius of Mr. Hook and Mr. Hastings with mediocrity.

    The 1892 Hook & Hastings pipe organ at St. Andrew's houses one of the earliest known examples of super-octave couplers in the United States. They brought the concept of this technology with them from Europe where it existed decades before, especially in England, but not in the area of Germany from which Hook and Hastings came.  So Hook and Hastings wonderfully reinvented that English technology here in America - in Boston. These couplers, achieved by the extreme use of basswood tracker technology, give the organ at St. Andrew's some of its characteristic sound and flexibility.


    The restorations that have made the to the organ at Saint Andrew’s insure that it will be speaking 100 years from now.  A pure voice from the 1800's speaking well into the twenty-second century. Please think about that.

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  • Here is a sample of the Hook & Hastings Pipe Organ

Join Us!

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Attributed to Aristotle.


50 York Street
Lambertville, NJ 08530

ph: (609) 577-7668

kevaneandco@yahoo.com