Choirs / Instrumentalists
St. John’s is blessed with a robust Music Ministry! Music plays a major role in both our traditional and contemporary services.
Traditional Music
The weekly Traditional Worship Service at St. John’s features congregational singing, choir, and soloists accompanied mainly by organ. Piano is also used frequently, along with many instrumentalists such as flutes, trumpets, trombones, French horns, and timpani. Our pipe organ is unique. It is a 36 rank “tracker” organ—the only tracker in our area. It was built almost 40 years ago by Wilhelm Zimmer of North Carolina. The organ has about 1,600 individual pipes, some as small as one half-inch, and some as long as 16 feet in length. The longest pipe is visible in the center of the organ case in the balcony. It almost touches the ceiling!
Our traditional worship service uses various liturgies from the Lutheran Service Book (hymnal) published by Concordia Publishing Company. Since starting to use this book in 2008, the congregation has sung over 550 different hymns—quite a variety. On an average Sunday, the traditional worship service features music from a very wide time span—usually from about 1700 through early 21 century, with an emphasis on composers who are still living.
The Senior Choir sings at most worship services during the academic year (August through June). The Adult Handbell Choir plays about once a month, and on festive days. Both groups practice on Thursday evenings. We also have soloists, small vocal ensembles and instrumentalists sharing their talents throughout the year. From time to time we are blessed to have one or more of the school’s choirs sing or play as part of our worship services.
Karl Bruhn, our traditional Music Organist and Music Director, has lead our traditional worship services for 17 years. He has music degrees from Concordia U.—River Forest (a masters degree in church music), and bachelors degree in music from Illinois Wesleyan U. He has been a church organist and/or music director since he was in high school; and has served in Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. He is an active Board Member of the Fox Valley Chapter of the American Guild of Organists where he presently is the Program Chairman. He is a retired middle school history teacher. He also is the Director of the ECHO Community Handbell Choir in Rockford, IL. Karl plays for most of our services, directs our adult handbell choir, and loves involving young people in our worship services.
Daniele Bruhn, Karl’s wife, is the Cantor (Senior Choir Director) for our “traditonal” services. Daniele is the Founder and Director of the Fox Valley Children’s Chorus. She also has a masters degree in church music from Concordia U (River Forest), and a BA degree in organ performance from Huntingdon College (AL) The Bruhns live in Batavia, and are constantly doing projects on their 154 year old house. They love travel, and recently returned from a Viking Cruise down the Danube—which included attending a performance of the Oberammergau Passion Play.
If you have any questions, or would like to join one of our choirs, please contact the Church Office for more information 630-629-2515 x118.
