Youth Choir

The Angel Choir is open to all youth in grades 7 through 12.

Along with singing for Sunday morning worship once a month from September through May, the group presents a program for Granville’s Christmas Candlelight Walking Tour every year on the first Saturday of Advent. The Angel Choir also gives various concerts in and around the community. In addition, high school members of the group traditionally take a weeklong Summer Singing Tour every other year.

The choir meets regularly for part rehearsals on Sunday evenings from 4:30 to 6 p.m. — girls from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m., and boys from 5:15 to 6 p.m. Roughly once a month, there will be a crossover rehearsal, with the girls staying until 5:30 and the boys arriving at 5 p.m. With the increased time required to prepare program material in late fall for the Christmas Candlelight Walking Tour, and in a touring year, rehearsals tend to last slightly longer and become a bit more numerous late in the semester.

The choir is directed by Joy Hire, who founded the group in 1993, and Meredith Needham has served as the group’s virtuosic accompanist for more than two decades. Both are active in the Granville music community, and both are alumnae of The Denison Singers, a select chamber ensemble at Denison University widely known for performing a diverse repertoire of choral music.

Please get in touch with Joy if you would like to sing with The Angel Choir if you have any questions. Participation in The Angel Choir is not restricted to church members.

Contact: Joy Hire, Angel Choir Director

Angel Choir Videos

This uplifting video follows The Angel Choir on tour in 2024, performing Craig Courtney's stunning setting of "O Word of God" in Granville, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, and crescendoing during Sunday worship at the magnificent and historic U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland. Enjoy!

In early June, The Angel Choir took its biennial Summer Singing Tour, which covered more than 2,000 miles over six days. Everywhere the choir went, they sang: in the vans, in churches and the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel, at highway rest areas, at an outlet mall, walking down village streets, at a retirement community, and on the rocks of Cape Neddick in York Beach, Maine. No piano, no problem! In this clip, the choir sings Victor C. Johnson’s beautiful arrangement of “I Will Wait for You,” accompanied only by wind, waves, and seagulls on Maine’s rocky coastline. We invite you to enjoy the group’s inspired singing in this glorious natural setting!

Below is a recording of The Angel Choir singing Elaine Hagenberg’s “All Praise to Thee.” After the choir had prepared several anthems for the 2022 Christmas Eve Service of Lessons and Carols, a snowstorm prevented the choir from traveling to the church to sing. Wanting to share their gift of music, they recorded one of those anthems, Elaine Hagenberg’s beautiful and expressive “All Praise to Thee,” and they offered this recording during Advent in 2023. Enjoy!

Below is a composite video of The Angel Choir singing Elaine Hagenberg’s “You Do Not Walk Alone.” The choir sang in six venues over seven days in June 2022 during its Summer Singing Tour to the East Coast that culminated at Sunday morning worship in the Navy Chapel on the yard of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. It was the fourth time that the Angel Choir had sung for worship there.

Below are four virtual Angel Choir anthems created by the singers during the pandemic of 2020 and 2021. Choir members sang their parts individually, which were compiled into these video choral collages. Please enjoy them!

“I Believe” by Mark A. Miller

“Cradle Carol” by Victor C. Johnson

“Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain” by Larry Shackley