By David Beers
Photos by Bruce Frisch

For many decades both the Catholic Church and Congregational Church in town have had active choirs with a long list of devoted singing members. Both choirs are fortunate to be led by musically gifted and experienced choir directors (and organ players), who are paid church staff.
Deirdre Broderick has been the Sunday music director for the Lakeville, Canaan and Norfolk Catholic churches for the past five years. Liz Allyn has been the music director for the Norfolk Congregational Church for the past 16 years. Both are highly regarded and well loved by their choir members and church congregations. Each works with her respective pastor to choose music that fits with a given day’s church service and its associated scripture.
Both choirs support and encourage the congregation in singing the church hymns, but the choirs also sing separately. The Catholic choir provides musical accompaniment during Communion, while the Congregational choir sings on its own twice during the service—during the Offertory and the anthem. Both groups have extracurricular activities beyond the weekly rehearsals and church services, some formal and some informal. The Catholic Church choir joins the Canaan and Lakeville church choirs for extra rehearsals and church services for special Christmas and Easter music. They also perform more contemporary music at the annual outdoor church picnic. The Congregational Church choir enjoys performing at other churches and at nursing homes. They also collaborate with the Salisbury Congregational Church choir for special nonreligious performances twice a year.

Each choir has 10 to 20 regular members, along with singers who are able to join them less consistently. Perfect choir attendance is not required. Anyone is welcome to sing regardless of church membership, religious affiliation, singing experience or ability to read music. All ages and musical backgrounds are represented in the choirs, and both directors are there to help participants learn to sing. A desire to sing is the only requirement for joining. Anyone who would like to participate should call the church office ahead of time, though, so they know to expect you (824-7078 for the Catholic church and 542-5721 for the Congregational). Allyn emphasized, “I want anybody to feel welcome to join us in our music ministry.”
The Catholic choir sings at the 11:30 a.m. Sunday service and then has a rehearsal immediately following the service, roughly from 12:15 to 12:40. The Congregational Church choir rehearses Thursday evenings from 7:15 to 8:30 and Sunday morning from 9:15 to 9:45, followed by a church service from 10 to 11 a.m.
It is obvious that the members of these choirs enjoy singing, but more importantly, they all wanted me to highlight that their favorite part is the comradery and support the choir generates. Ernie Sinclair, a member of the Congregational Choir for more than 70 years, stated, “We have had our ups and downs, but overall we have always had a wonderful choir.” Judith McKinnon is a 20-year member of the Catholic Church choir. When she was recently in the hospital, the choir came to sing to her, lifting her spirits at a challenging time. She summed up the choirs best when she said, “When we sing together, we become one voice.”

This is the fourth in a series about club activities in Norfolk.