Music at First Parish of Watertown
When you attend a worship service at First Parish, music is one of the reasons you come back! We want music to engage your body, heart, and soul, and it is always performed live in our sanctuary. Hymn-singing and piano music in many styles are part of our weekly ministry.
Services are often enhanced by guest musicians who come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including Classical, folk, ethnic, world music, some jazz, as well as popular music and music composed by contemporary artists. Those artists are often part of our congregation or friends from the musical community in the Boston area.
The First Parish Choir meets weekly to rehearse, and we sing in a church service once per month. The 2025-2026 rehearsal calendar is here. Again, the music we sing reflects a wide variety of styles to uplift both choir members and the congregation. The choir music we sing reflects the UU monthly themes.
Musicians at First Parish often collaborate on their own, which speaks to the huge amount of talent and interest in the arts that exists in our church community. You need only look across the aisle to see someone who might be happy to create something with you for our annual variety show. This was exactly how our First Parish rock n’ roll band began. Now, the band provides and supports the music at select worship services.
Our music directors welcome input from our community about what they want our music program to be. Please feel free to approach us!
Hand in Hand Hospice Singers serve the wider community in Watertown and beyond. Sponsored by First Parish, this group travels to hospice sites to sing for people who are ill or at the ends of their lives, bringing joy and serenity to their days. They rehearse weekly.
Musically Speaking Blog
Updates and reflections from Charlyn Bethell, Music Director
Musically Speaking – September 2026
Welcome. A new year is beginning at First Parish. Welcome is such a multi-faceted word. It can be a noun, the act of greeting someone. It can be a verb, the act of reaching out or accepting something happily. It can be an adjective, descriptive of something gladly...
Musically Speaking – June 2026
Shining through our year of Intention, and all the monthly themes, I see our First Parish choir. Belonging to the choir is to embody compassion, abundance, and courage as we notice with awe the rituals that awaken us to be flourishing together. (All underlined words...
Musically Speaking – May 2026
This month, our theme is Rituals. Music has such a profound role in rituals at a church service. Before I mention that, my mind goes to the music used in movies or TV shows. Without music, shows might be devoid of feeling, definitely rendering them incomplete. As part...
Musically Speaking – April 2026
In our worship planning, we, the staff, focus on themes which give us inspirations for creating weekly worship services. This month, it is “Awakening.” It is as if, after being asleep, I wake to something new or something with more depth: appreciation of beauty, being...
Musically Speaking – March 2026
I am making a bold statement that “music helps us pay attention.” If I am trying to remember something important, I sometimes put that content into a melody and it then stays with me. And then, there is the issue of what we choose to pay attention to. I am humbled by...