Music
Choir
Music is an integral and essential part of worship at St. John’s. Our music program is known for its excellent quality and distinctive style. Our volunteer choir leads the congregation in a wide range of music every Sunday, from traditional Anglican and Episcopal hymns to medieval chant and Renaissance motets to American folk music and spirituals. If you are interested in joining the choir, or for general inquiries email Daniel Gonzalez, Director of Music <music@saintjohnsf.org> or leave a leave a phone message with the church office.
We have brought back our handbells choir for Easter performances. Please see our music director if you are interested in joining this summer to prepare for fall performances.
Compline is now sung every third Sunday with the St. John’s Choir In Person or on Zoom at 7:10pm.
The Zoom link below is also circulated via the parish newsletter. If you do not subscribe to the email list, you may contact the music director for an invitation, or click here to join us via livestream.
Silent Movie with Live Accompaniment
Sunday 3/12 at 4pm, Ben Bachmann will play some music from colonial America and then accompany live two short silent films. If you have never seen a silent film with live accompaniment, it is an amazing multimedia experience and cultural throwback that you will not want to miss out on. There will be snacks during and after the show. Free will offering of $15 suggested, however all are welcome regardless of ability to donate.
About the artist: Ben, a long-time Mission neighborhood resident, is currently the music director at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, is the former Canon Director of Music at Grace Cathedral, and is a prize-winning organist, pianist, and expert improvisor whose musical style draws on all music from the classical canon, to jazz, to world music.
- Sun 12 Mar at 4pm
- Organ recital by Ben Bachmann
- Tues 4 Apr at 730pm
- “Where the wild things are” Baroque music inspired by the animal kingdom
- Artists-in-residence Shelby Yamin (violin) and Caitlyn Koester (harpsichord)
- Sun 30 Apr at 2pm
- Music of Schubert and Guastavino for piano and voice
- Tues 23 May at 730pm
- “SalonEra Presents: No Straight Answers – Live”
- Artists-in-residence Shelby Yamin (violin) and Caitlyn Koester (harpsichord)
- June date and time tbd
- Organ recital
Originally from Redwood City, Duane Soubirous is a second-year master’s student at the University of Oregon studying organ performance with Dr. Barbara Baird. In the 2021-22 academic year, he also took voice lessons and sang in UO’s Chamber Choir, which was invited to perform the St. Matthew Passion at Oregon Bach Festival 2022. Duane was the 2021-22 organ scholar at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Eugene, and he has previously served as organist for churches around the Bay Area. He has also volunteered for the Eugene and Palo Alto chapters of the American Guild of Organists. He graduated from Oberlin College in May 2019 with a BA in History, after having previously studied organ performance at the Oberlin Conservatory for three years. His non-musical interests include spending time outdoors and reading classic novels.
Violinist Shelby Yamin, who brings signature vivacity to performances across the globe, from the historic state rooms of George Washington’s Mount Vernon to the storied chapel at Versailles, performed at St. John’s on September 27, 2022. Equally adept on modern and baroque violin, Shelby has appeared as a soloist with Philharmonia Baroque Chamber Players, New York Baroque Incorporated, the San Francisco Academy Orchestra, Tafelmusik Winter Institute, and as guest concertmaster of the 2019 Berwick Academy of the Oregon Bach Festival. Also an active chamber musician, she regularly collaborates with a wide range of New York based ensembles and Cleveland’s Les Délices. https://www.shelby-yamin.com/
Caitlyn Koester, a harpsichordist and music director active in early music communities across the United States, performed at St. John’s on September 27, 2022. She has worked with organizations including SF Early Music Society, SF State University, The Princeton Festival, Gotham Early Music Society, and others in and around the Bay Area and NYC. Her international duo, AKOYA, is a recipient of Early Music America’s Emerging Artists grant. AKOYA releases its first album of Graupner’s complete sonatas for violin and harpsichord under the ATMA Classique label in Spring 2023. Caitlyn is on faculty at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. www.caitlynkoester.com
We were very pleased to have a happy return of Music at Saint John’s with a recital featuring Amanda Mole, international prize-winning organist, with a scintillating program of Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Mozart, Reger, Hampton, Schumann, and Rheinberger. This recital was jointly sponsored by St. John’s and the American Guild of Organists San Francisco Chapter. The recital was live-streamed and can be watched on the SFAGO website for one month: https://www.sfago.org/.
Many thanks to St. John’s Director of Music Daniel Gonzalez for organizing the recital series; to Sophia Zimmerman for arranging the lovely garden reception; to the many supporters of Music at Saint John’s; to the SFAGO; and of course to Amanda Mole for her wonderful performance and engaging discussion of the pieces!
About the Organ
In 1909 St. John’s erected the present building and installed an Austin organ of ten ranks. Seventy years later the instrument needed serious repair and rebuilding. The cost of this prompted consideration of an alternative approach with the result that the Vestry authorized a search for a suitable used organ. Criteria for the organ’s selection were (l) that it have a mechanical action, (2) that it be tonally more versatile than its predecessor and capable of playing a broader spectrum of the literature, and (3) that it be able to fulfill well the demands of the Anglican service. The organist at that time, Paul Bornand, recommended that the new organ be placed in a side aisle rather than in the previous organ’s chamber. This would allow better tonal egress into the nave and permit the organist to direct the choir from the console.
The story of St. John’s “new” organ begins in January 1902, when St. Paul’s English Evangelical Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa, contracted with M.P. Möller, of Hagerstown, Maryland. The firm agreed to build its Op. 388, a two-manual-and-pedal instrument with tracker (mechanical) action and thirteen ranks of pipes, for $1,500 and to install it that same year. By 1980 the building housed a different congregation and the organ was no longer in use, having suffered water damage from a leak in the roof. After information furnished by the Organ Clearing House on this and other available organs had been considered, St. John’s organist Nathan Privett and organ technician John DeCamp inspected the Davenport instrument and recommended its purchase.
It was bought, dismantled, and trucked to Los Angeles, where, retaining its tracker action, Decamp rebuilt and enlarged it in the shop of Rosales Organ-builders, Inc. The organ’s freestanding placement in St. John’s required a platform for the console and sides for the case. Rosales built these according to the design of parishioner John Mitchell, who served as engineer-draftsman for the project. Rosales reconstructed the Pedal windchest as well. In May 1983, parishioner volunteers and friends began the organ’s installation in St. John’s, and one year later it was dedicated.A full specification of the instrument is available here.
