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Music at Mount Vernon

CHOIRS

Aldersgate Choir – In addition to singing at the 11 a.m. service each Sunday, the Aldersgate Choir presents a Festival of Lessons and Carols each December and a major choral work each spring. In the past this spring choral service has included masses by Charles Gounod, Cesar Franck, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; "Requiem" by Maurice Duruffle; and "Rejoice in the Lamb" by Benjamin Britten, as well as contemporary works, some especially commissioned by and for the Aldersgate Choir.
    Rehearsals are on Wednesdays at 7:15 p.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

Epworth Choir  – This adult choir sings at the 8:30 a.m. Sunday service and joins the Aldersgate Choir for the choral service in the spring.  The choir meets at 8 a.m. for a rehearsal before the 8:30 Sunday service.

Youth Handbells –  A choir for middle-school and high-school-aged handbell ringers meets on Sundays at 5 p.m. during the school year.

Aldersgate Ringers – The adult handbell choir rings several times each year at the 8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Sunday services and at the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. The choir plays intermediate and advanced handbell music on five octives of Malmark English handbells.
    Rehearsals are on Tuesdays, from 11 a.m. until noon, followed by a potluck lunch.

   
THE DIRECTOR

Robert Sutter is serving as interim director of music at Mount Vernon. He is also the director of the Danville Area Choral Arts Society and was the music director at First Presbyterian Church of Danville until he retired.

THE ORGAN

The organ at Mount Vernon Church was built in 1860 by the Boston firm of Simmons and Willcox for the First Church Congregational in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was later moved to St. Philip's Roman Catholic Church, and when that church closed its doors, the instrument was placed in storage by the Organ Historical Society. The organ was purchased by Mount Vernon in 1988 and restored and enlarged by George Bozeman and Company of Deerfield, New Hampshire. The mechanical action instrument includes thirty stops and thirty-three ranks of pipes over two manuals and pedal.

For more information about the organ and its history, see:

HISTORY OF THE ORGAN AT MOUNT VERNON, by Alan Laufman, executive director, Organ Clearing House

REBUILDING THE 1860 SIMMONS AND WILLCOX ORGAN FOR MOUNT VERNON, by George Bozeman, Jr.

In 2001, National Public Radio's Pipedreams featured notable organs of southern Virginia and northern North Carolina, including the organ at Mount Vernon Church. You can hear the program, "Some Southern Comfort," at http://pipedreams.publicradio.org/listings/2008/0823/.