Our goal is to sing the best possible music from all musical periods, as beautifully as possible. The church’s music program is expanding and improving, with good musicians, both professional and volunteer in the choir. It sings Psalms, hymns, anthems, liturgical chants and other elements of Christian worship as needed every Sunday from September through the end of the school year in May or June. The choir also sings at special services such as Advent Lessons and Carols, Christmas Eve, and several others through the year.
The St. Christopher’s J. W. Walker & Sons Pipe Organ
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The magnificent organ at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Kailua is a two-manual, 20-stop, mechanical-action pipe organ crafted by J. W. Walker & Sons, Ltd. of England and installed in this Church in 1983. It possesses a warm, distinctive and noble singing quality ideally suited for service music, choral accompaniment, and a wide range of organ literature. It has been described as among the three best organs in Hawai’i and certainly the best organ on the Windward side of Oahu.
A tracker organ is distinguished from other pipe organs by its mechanical action. The links between the keys/stop actions and the pipes are direct and purely mechanical rather than electrical. As a result, the artist can completely control the speech and articulation of each pipe in a manner similar to the playing of a piano or harpsichord. The Walker organ has two 61-note keyboards and a 32-note pedalboard. In the tradition of classic English organs, the keyboard naturals are made of black ebony with the sharps capped in white bone. The precision-crafted organ mechanism is enclosed in a 16-foot, free-standing case of African mahogany. St. Christopher’s Church is grateful to Carol Jean Root, the Harold K. L. Castle Foundation, the Samuel and Mary Castle Foundation, the Virginia Carpenter Memorial Fund, and the St. Christopher’s Organ Memorial Fund for their contributions toward the purchase of this outstanding instrument. It was purchased in 1983 for $68,000 and its replacement value would be well over $300,000 today! Former organists Mary Lou Lufkin and Mark Wong were both instrumental in helping to select this Walker tracker organ for us. We remain grateful to the organists who have shared their gifts of music at St. Christopher’s on this unique organ: Mark Wong, David Hicken, Timothy Cubero, Leigh Johansen, and our current organist, Dan Werning, who began in December of 2014, and who also serves as our Choirmaster. We are grateful to God for this historic, beautiful instrument and the music it produces in praise of God! |