The choirs are back in rehearsal on Wednesday night, both
Chancel Choir (8:15 - 9:30 PM) and
Cantabelle (handbell, 7 - 8 PM), See details below
The chancel choir sings each Sunday.  New voices and ringers are always welcome. Call Barb Swaby, choir, 727-2422, or Dennis Dell, 268-6118 (work), bells.  We'd love to hear from you!

Psalm 150 says, "Praise ye the Lord.  Praise God in his sanctuary with trumpet, psaltery, harp, stringed instruments, organs, and loud cymbals."  The recently renovated organ in our sanctuary has all of the different sounds of an orchestra:  strings, woodwinds, reeds, brass, and additional pipes considered to be the basic sound of the instrument called diapasons.  The many combinations of these different pipes are what enhances the contrasts in worship and the church year.  See the Photos page (left), and click on Organ Renovation for an inside look and scroll to the bottom of that page for more details on the whole process.

Organ Stats:
Constructed in 1918
Electro-Pneumatic Pipe Organ
Voiced for our Sanctuary
Console Rebuilt
2 Manual and 1 Pedal Keyboard
27 ranks
23 Registers (Stops)
1,526 Pipes
Integrated Computer Control System with 256 Independent Memory Levels
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
Transposer
Digital Recording /Playback Capacity

"The sound of the organ music is filling our sanctuary as the organ builders continue their incredible work on our new instrument. With the largest wooden pipes remaining in the chambers, each of the 678 retained pipes was moved to the Fellowship Hall, cleaned, and repaired (some even welded), tuned and voiced, and then re-installed in the new windchests off the sanctuary.  The 861 new pipes are in.  The new exposed pipes, which are lower pitches from the pedals, are finished.  All of the metal pipes are hand made- the ones over 4' are made of zinc, and the shorter ones are a combination of tin and lead."

"Singing Ringers"

The Cantabelle Ringers started in the fall of 1986 with the assistance of Mary Fran Lewis.  Dennis Dell was the first director and continues in that position today. The choir participated in the Big Sky Handbell Festival for the first time in April of 1987.  The church purchased a three-octave set of Malmark Handbells and started with 11 ringers.  In 1995, Great Falls hosted the Big Sky Handbell festival and had 23 choirs and 250 ringers assemble at Paris Gibson Middle School with Bob Ivey as the clinician.   Members of the choir have attended the Region X handbell festival in Portland, Tacoma, and Spokane in the past years.  This event happens every even year in the Northwest.
 
Chris Kosmerl and Lynn Weeks started the first youth handbell choir in 1990 and it lasted for three years.  Attendance and time of practice made keeping the group growing difficult and it disbanded for a time.  In the fall of 2000, a youth chime choir was started  at the Logos Wednesday night church program for youth. 
 
Presently we own a four-octave set of Malmark Handbells and a three-octave set of choir chimes.  Membership in this group is open to any interested person willing to make the time commitment.  If you are interested, contact the church or call Dennis Dell at 452-8695.
 
The name of the group came from Dennis Dell who changed the musical term cantabile into cantabelle - which literally means "singing - ringers".  Many of the first handbell choir were also Chancel Choir members at the time, hence the name.