CHOIRS

Children’s Choir

All children grades K-6 are welcome! Rehearsals are each Sunday after the 10:00 AM service for 30 min., and the choir sings in the 10:00 AM. service approximately once/month, Christmas Eve and Easter. They also perform a big musical in the spring for both services.

Adult Chancel Choir

The Adult/Chancel Choir practices every Wednesday night from 7:30 to 9:00 PM. The choir sings regularly at the 10:00 AM Sunday worship service, and provides special music during the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. They are always looking for more members! For more information, contact our Music Director Jan Smith at Music@ValeChurch.Org or (703) 732-2750.

Flute Choir

The Flute Choir, which is comprised of both Vale and non-Vale members, holds rehearsals on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month from 7:30 to 9:00 PM. The choir performs during Sunday worship services six times a year (on the third Sunday of alternating months) and occasionally plays at other churches. Participating in the flute choir gives flute players, who may not have many opportunities to play, the chance to hone their skills and just enjoy their instruments. The repertoire includes sacred, secular, and classical music. The choir has a bass flute and an alto flute so that full choir arrangements can be performed. All participants are welcome to play the bass and/or alto flutes.

Contact Linda Allardyce at lallardyce@aol.com or 571-445-3735 for more information.

HANDBELLS

Children’s Handchimes
All ages! Anyone is welcome to try the handchime choir, which rehearses every Sunday after the Children’s Choir (about 11:45-12:15pm). Performances in worship are TBD.
Adult Handbells

The Handbell Choir rehearses on Sundays from 12:15-1:15 PM and plays for worship services falling on the third Sunday, every other month. The choir also presents a special dessert concert in the Spring. Anyone who can count can play handbells; there is no requirement to have any musical background or experience. The church has five octaves of handbells and an extensive library of handbell music, including secular, sacred, and classical. For more information, contact Norm Dietz, at NJDietz@Verizon.Net for more information.

OTHER MUSIC OPPORTUNITIES

Acoustic Jam-Sing

Every month, Vale Church hosts a fun community music event called the “Acoustic Jam-Sing.” It’s an informal meet-up of musicians and singers of varying abilities, and of all ages, from Oakton, Vienna, Herndon, Reston, Fairfax and other nearby towns. We normally meet on the second Thursday of every month (although varies a bit).

Beginners and spectators are totally welcome! So are all kinds of acoustic instruments, including guitar, banjo, mandolin, dobro, harmonica, violin (fiddle), cello, ukulele, recorder, whistle, flute, accordion, acoustic bass, cajon, bongos (or other small drums), tambourine, etc.  We’ve even had folks play washboard, spoons and the bones. 

We provide music binders containing more than 150 song sheets, showing chords and lyrics (pop, country, folk, rock, blues, gospel, bluegrass, etc.). Feel free to bring additional song sheets if you want to teach us one of your favorites. Or just tell us the key, play a few notes and teach us the words; we’ll catch on. If you play guitar or banjo, you should bring your capo along, too.

Simple refreshments are provided. We typically hold the jam-sing in the large room in Vale’s Fellowship Hall, but occasionally we’ll get bumped and hold it in a different room instead. When the weather has been pleasant, we’ve occasionally gone outside to jam.

If you want to listen to the songs in our jam binders, and you have access to Spotify, just find the Spotify playlist called “Oakton Jam Favorites.”

To find out more, contact Clint O’Brien, who can put you on the Jam-Sing email list so you will always know the date of the next event. He will also invite you to access an online Dropbox folder that contains all of the songs from the jam binders.

Free Community Concerts

Vale Church in 2019 launched a series of free community concerts by professional musicians, featuring a different artist every three months. The concerts are held in Vale’s historic church sanctuary, which is blessed to have wonderful acoustics for musical and vocal performances.

So far in 2019, featured musical artists have included pedal steel guitarist Johnny Farina and folk singer-songwriter Siobhan O’Brien.

Admission to the concerts is free, although donations are invited at the door to help defray the cost of bringing in professional performers. Free refreshments are provided after each concert, and the artists often stick around to meet and talk with concertgoers.