Choir
The choir of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church is a volunteer parish choir and continues to play an important part in the worship services since the opening of St. Mark’s in 1938. With the remarkable acoustical ambiance of the building of four seconds reverberation, strong congregational singing of hymns, psalms, canticles, and communion settings has been a hallmark of St. Mark’s. St. Mark’s continues to follow a strong Anglican musical tradition and has benefitted from several past Organist-Choirmasters with Anglican Cathedral training. A wide variety of music is offered from contemporary composers to the great masters of the Romantic, Classical and Renaissance periods. Special emphasis is placed upon the singing of Psalms in the Anglican tradition in which the congregation fully participates.
The choir rehearses every Thursday evening and sings the 10:00 AM service each Sunday September through May. Occasional special services and Evensongs provide the opportunity for other singers and church choirs to join in the preparation of more extended musical works. The choir consists of members with musical degrees and professional experience to those of no prior experience. Regardless, all persons of any age are welcome to join the choir … there is a place and room for everyone!
Dr. Raedeke is a faculty member at Washington University and holds a Bachelor of Music degree in church music from Valparaiso University, and a Master of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music. She performs widely and has served churches in St. Louis, New York, and Connecticut. A member of St. Mark’s, she served on the committee that oversaw the selection and installation of the church’s Juget-Sinclair organ.
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Meet Organist & Choir Director, Dr. Barbara Raedeke
The Organ
The Juget-Sinclair Organ, Opus 32, 2009 is a tracker (mechanical action) organ of twenty stops. Its French-inspired voicing produces the warmth and color for 19th- and 20th-century music yet has the crystal clarity required for Baroque music. The organ has two manuals and pedal, 20 stops, 23 ranks and 1,1210 pipes, all produced in the workshop of Juget-Sinclair in Montreal, Canada. For specifications, click here.
The organ was featured and on the cover of The American Organist, February 2011, Organ Canada, July 2010, and The Diapason, February 2011. The CD titled Confluence, by organist Dr. Barbara Raedeke, is available from Raven Compact Disks (RAVENoar-937).
The organ includes 400 levels of memory and couplers II/I, I/P, II/P. The instrument is tuned in 1/9-Syntonc Comma mean-tone temperament and is under 3” wind pressure. The casework is of white oak and console with mahogany in lay. There are 10 general pistons, 6 Grade-Orgue divisional pistons, 6 Recit expressif divisional pistons, and 4 Pedale pistons. The church has four seconds of reverberation when empty, and lends to the organ a quite extraordinary ambiance.