Choir

Our small but dedicated choir rehearses on Sunday mornings at 8:30 and again at 9:15 before the 10:00 service. In addition to leading the hymns and liturgy of the service, the choir also prepares anthems as its offering. Membership in the choirs is open to all at any time.

Concerts

Organ concerts are presented in our Organ Brevis series on the first Sunday of the month in June, July, August, and December.

Organ

Casavant Fréres Ltée, Opus 2324, 

In 1908 an Estey pipe organ Opus 567 was installed in the new Church of the Messiah on the site of the old, at Gay & Fayette which was destroyed in the Baltimore fire of 1904. Estey, based in Brattleboro, VT was primarily known for making reed organs. They only began making pipe organs in 1901. the Estey salesperson sold other Estey Pipe Organs to churches in 1908 around Baltimore including St. Davidʼs Episcopal and Church of the Savior, Episcopal. When the congregation moved here in the 1920s they took the Estey organ with them. Legend has it that some decades later, one of the facade pipes came loose, fell and struck a choir member. The Estey organ was replaced in 1956 with an organ made by Casavant Fréres Ltée of Canada. This organ was ordered with NO exposed facade pipes. The cost was a little over $31,000. At that time the average house cost about $12,000, the average car cost about $3-4,000, and a gallon of gas was about 30 cents.

Some changes were made to the organ in the 1980s including exposing some of the pipes in the chancel.  In 2013, the Columbia Organ Works of Columbia, Pennsylvania did a complete restoration of the organ, which included releathering and a solid state control system for the console. Also included were new drawknobs, pistons, and a new pedal board.

In April of 2015, the Organ Historical Society visited Messiah and said this about the organ, “The sound of the full organ is very thrilling and blossoms once you walk out into the congregational pews.”