Montview’s Music Program

Choral music at Montview is a church ministry of individuals wishing to work in a challenging program that provides enrichment to the Montview congregation and Denver community through inspiring music. All programs are planned with the hope of building the spiritual and intellectual lives of singers as much as the audiences, which hear them. The choirs are active roughly from September through May. Minister of Music John Kuzma leads all choirs.

WESTMINSTER CHOIR, for adults, sings at all regular and special worship services. Currently about 60 members, the choir sings an ambitious range of choral repertoire from Renaissance to 21st century, from Oratorios to Gospel, in all about 100 compositions each season. Membership is by audition. Westminster Choir performs with orchestra in major programs each fall and spring and presents Bach Cantatas twice each year. At Easter, the Denver Brass joins the choir in glorious hymns and anthems. Interested singers are encouraged to attend a rehearsal Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.

JUBILATE CHOIR, for singers in grades 7 through 12, meets Sundays 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., before the Montview youth programs. Now numbering about 25 voices, Jubilate Choir sings at major concert presentations in combination with Westminster Choir in addition to Sunday mornings six to eight times a year. While much of Jubilate Choir’s repertoire is youth oriented, the choir sings mainstream classical compositions as well.

TIMBREL CHOIR, for singers in grades 3 though 6, rehearses Sundays 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. This year’s Timbrel Choir has about 25 voices and sings six to eight times each year on Sunday mornings. Timbrel Choir also participates in major presentations such as this year’s presentation with Westminster and Jubilate Choir. Timbrel choristers learn solfege and music reading in addition to receiving vocal instruction.

CANTATE CHOIR, Montview’s youngest singing group, is for children in kindergarten through 2nd grade. This choir meets as a part of church school Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. and sings four times each season at Sunday worship. Primarily pedagogical, the rehearsals focus on solfege, music reading, and building of basic choral and musical skills using age appropriate materials. Occasionally Cantate Choir participates in a major effort, such as Benjamin Britten’s church opera Noye’s Fludde, presented in 1988, 1991, and 2000.

Conservatory of Music
Approximately 70 students of all ages enrolled in the Conservatory of Music programs. The curriculum includes instruction in Orff-Schulwerk, organ, piano and recorder. Classes meet throughout the week. In the summer, the conservatory offers choral reading sessions led by local choral conductors.

New Pipe Organ
Montview’s fine Morel & Associates pipe organ was installed in 2001. The installation incorporates pipework from the original 1958 Reuter organ with a new four manual console, new pipework with some tonal alterations, and repair of older pipes. The new instrument has over 4000 pipes, some 80 ranks, digital memory, and full MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) capabilities. The new organ combines the tonal warmth and character of the original instrument with a significant increase in dynamic range, tonal color, and modern electronics.

New Timpani

Music Contact
If you are interested in becoming involved in any of our music programs, please contact John Kuzma, Montview’s minister of music at kuzma@montview.org.

Community choirs and ensembles that use Montview facilities
Denver Brass
Denver Gay Men’s Chorus
Opera Colorado (training & auditions)

Montview's "Wave of Music"

Montview members and visitors had the opportunity on November 19 to express gratitude to God through jazz on “Jazz Sunday.” Minister of Music John Kuzma led the congregation in an innovative jazz sing-along of Thanksgiving hymns, with organ and the Montview Brass Quintet and Drums.

“We take an original approach to all the music we do,” said Kuzma, who will celebrate two decades at Montview next year. “We try to do what is not obvious. For example, many efforts at bringing cross-cultural elements into music fail because of a ponderous, didactic – and obvious – quality.

“Better to infuse Afro-Cuban or Caribbean elements creatively into a whole fabric than to play a ‘Latin’ carol as a stand-alone. Better to use bagpipes in original musical settings than just to play the same old, and tradition-heavy, pipe tunes, even if we do that too. Better to have the organ as keyboard instrument playing jazz chords – I think of Fats Waller’s pipe organ recordings – than to import a jazz quintet as an ornamental add-on.”

In the congregation sing-along on November 19, Kuzma said, “there were jazzy intros and fills between phrases, and the whole texture was colored with jazz chords.”

Montview introduced jazz into musical worship in September 2005, and Jazz Sundays now are offered three or four times a year. “You can’t go out and buy music for the kind of jazz we do,” Kuzma said. “Almost all published religious jazz leaves little room for the creative improv that the best jazz players bring. If there is any choral writing at all, it’s rarely of great interest.”

He noted that the church’s sacred music presentations embrace both authentic jazz and what could be termed jazzy. “The real jazz we play,” he explained, “includes specially arranged or composed music for professional players, with fully developed improvisation in mainstream, straight-ahead Bebop style. ‘Jazzy’ refers to written-out arrangements, without improvisation, that nevertheless contain convincing chords and melodic patterns.”

The unique November 19 service was part of what the Rev. Bill Calhoun calls “the wave of music that flows through our worship – the moving power of Reformation Sunday with bagpipes and organ, the annual Christmas choir service on December 3, the ‘Lessons and Carols’ service on December 17, and the bold music that speaks of Christmas on December 24.”

In addition to bagpipes and organ, Montview’s music on Reformation Sunday in October featured Bach’s Cantata 79. The Westminster Choir marked All Saints Day in November by performing works by Hindemith and Faure.

Advent began with the Montview Orchestra, the Westminster Choir, the Jubilate Choir and the Timbrel Choir performing Hindemith's Christmas Cantata and the Mannheim Steamroller's arrangement of “Silent Night.” - Barbara Haddad Ryan