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 – February 2026
This month, “embodiment” is our theme. What does that even mean—and what does it mean to me, the music director? So, I looked up what “embodiment” means: “a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling.” It could mean a realization of what matters and how...
Musically Speaking – January 2026
Happy New Year! Welcome 2026! This is a true story from the days of people enslaved, thinking of escaping. Imagine that you were born on a plantation and had never left it. You had heard of others like you who had escaped North. You do not know what or where “North”...
Musically Speaking – December 2025
Even though the weather has gotten cold, I notice a sense of Awe in the air. I admit that I get much joy from tending our yard during the warm season. But, when it gets cold, the trees and plants get to rest. They shed their leaves with the certainty of them...
Musically Speaking – November 2025
For the All-Souls Service on November 2nd, the First Parish choir is singing an anthem about the urgency of actions needed because of climate change, called More Waters Rising. The composer of this anthem, Saro Lynch-Thomason, has quoted Theodore Parker from 1853,...
Musically Speaking – October 2025
The collective voices of the First Parish’s choir will be heard at the October 5th worship service. We are singing some beautiful music this month and for the whole 2025—26 season. Choosing music for the choir is a labor of love for me. I look through our large...