The church’s youth choir is seeking new members as preparations begin for a touring choir trip to Denmark in the summer of 2025 or 2026.
The First Presbyterian Church of Moorestown (FPC Moorestown) will hold weekly rehearsals for its 2024-’25 choir season starting in September.
There’s a spot for everyone in the graded choral system or handbell choir, regardless of age, skill level or spiritual affiliation. Choir groups include Primary Choir (k-first grade), Junior Choir (grades two to four), Choristers (grades five to eight), Chapel Choir (nine to 12 and college), Adult Choir and Bell Choir.
You don’t have to be a member of the church to join – boys and girls from the entire local community are welcome. Under the seasoned guidance of Joel Krott, the church music director with over half a century of service, singers delve deep into the scriptural content of each piece and apply it in real life.
“Children start when they’re 5 years old, and I watch them grow up,” Krott said of the choir program. “Some of them become very close, those who particularly love music and those who are receptive. So, over the years, I now have a lot of adults singing who had been growing up in the choir through every turn of this area, so it’s very relational to watch that happen …
“I’m not quite sure how to say what it is like, but obviously I enjoy it enough to do it way beyond retirement age.”
The church provides choral opportunities for adults that include Thursday rehearsals from 7 to 9 p.m., singing in Sunday services and performing major choral works with the orchestra in the concert series the church presents yearly. There is also a Bell Choir for all ages on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
Rehearsals for the choral program are weekly, September through mid-May, and are enhanced by an annual spring weekend music retreat. A schedule of all events is distributed in mid-summer. Children who have any musical difficulties receive one-on-one special support.
“Not every child or teen is interested and that’s good, that’s why there’s a variety of things within the church, but for those who like music, I think they enjoy singing things with kids their own age and having regular opportunities to actually perform them,” said Joel Krott, the church’s director of music.
“It’s a very long heritage (church music), and I think one of the things that makes us unique, for reasons I don’t really understand, is when I started this, when I was in my early 20s and when I was in music school, churches all over had … lots of children, lots of teens singing, and it was common,” Krott recalled.
“That is now less common, and it’s been replaced by bands and things like that, which have their own value,” he added. “But I think choirs have musical traditions that go back centuries and are very deep. There’s a lot of variety and choirs create participation …
“Choirs contribute to the overall activity, substance and population in churches.”
Besides performing at the traditional Sunday worship service, choir participants get to perform with the professional West Jersey Chamber Orchestra and in special events concerts throughout the year. The young choirs can experience concert tours to Europe.
In the summer of 2019, the touring choir embarked on its fourth international tour: 52 young singers performed in Germany, Sweden and Denmark. Groundwork is currently being laid for a similar tour in the summer of 2026.
“The feedback has been positive enough that I’m incentivized to keep doing it,” Krott noted of the choral program. “Not every child or teen is interested and that’s good. That’s why there’s a variety of things within the church, but for those who like music, I think they enjoy singing things with kids their own age and having regular opportunities to actually perform them.
“In many of the choirs, there’s a cluster of kids that go to school together, so (it’s) become another place where they can interact and have contact.”
The choral program is free for children and adults. Participants pay for their international trip and choir retreats. All events and rehearsals take place at the church. For more details and the 2024-25 schedule for rehearsals, visit https://www.fpcmoorestown.org/music/we-love-music/.
