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 2025
Welcome, Welcome! It is the end of summer and I am excited to soon be back doing music with you all. In July, Guy and I were fortunate to be able to be part of the Association of Unitarian Universalist Music Ministries’ (AUUMM) annual national conference in Atlanta....
Musically Speaking – May 30, 2025
The Practice of Freedom …so sing with me, and we’ll make our way down that blessed road together, collectively better than we ever thought possible. —from I Go to Sing by Lindy Thompson To Transform Work, We Must Rest —from The Nap Ministry Our inner lives are filled...
Musically Speaking – May 2025
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” —Albert Einstein With imagination as our theme for May, I am excited! As a musician, imagination...
Musically Speaking – April 2025
“The Practice of Joy” Happy Spring, everyone! Most of us rejoice even to think of the weather as warming, the angle of the sun shifting, and the promise of our garden blooming again. As we experience these sensations, they can remind us of feeling joy. Probably, joy...
Musically Speaking – March 2025
We do a deep-dive into “The Practice of Trust” this month. What is trust? Trust is multi-faceted. It is belief in character, ability, truth, other people, sometimes based on knowledge and sometimes based on a feeling. It is supporting an ideal worthy of building...