Our Tradition Of Music

Trinity's first church was outfitted with a steeple, a bell for which could not be funded until 1793. Indoors, however, the parish's first recorded paid organist was hired in 1787, two years after the installation of the first organ. The addition of a rear gallery in the early 1790's for "the use of the singers" prepared the way for a choir.

The main part of Trinity's second (and present) church building was completed in 1815. A new organ and the quartet choir of singers were installed in the rear gallery, followed by a succession of several new instruments (culminating in the present 1935 Aeolian-Skinner organ of 79 ranks, with divisions located in both the gallery and chancel of the church). By 1856, the parish had not only a well-paid organist, but a paid choirmaster to lead the quartet choir (and a paid bellows boy to pump the organ!).

While the choir seems to have been in good form by 1860, the vestry hired in that year a "conductor of music in order that congregational singing be made more effectual." Just before services began, the congregation would practice the hymns for the day.

But equally important to the congregation was the quality of the increasingly popular choral music so, in 1885, our present Choir of Men and Boys was founded and installed in the newly built Chancel. This group was much larger in size and repertoire than any of the previous groups, and was founded on models seen and heard by the Rector while in England. This has continued to flourish, carrying on the tradition of centuries, all the while adapting to the ever changing needs of the parish. The Men and Boys are the regular choir at the 11 am Sunday service, and the full Choir, or the Boys Choir, sings a wide repertoire outside the parish. Two mixed adult choirs also sing the services of the parish: the Spirit Singers sing gospel, folk and contemporary music as the regular leaders of the 9 am service, and the Trinity Singers, at various parish services, sing music ranging from plainsong to polyphony to gospel.