Westminster is now on 
Our Music Tradition
For 150 years, Westminster has distinguished itself with high-quality music, musicians, and musical instruments. When many churches had only a piano or reed organ, Westminster's first church building (completed in about 1866 and located at 6th & L Streets in downtown Sacramento) had a small, hand-pumped pipe organ.
The second home of Westminster Presbyterian Church (completed in about 1904 and located at 13th & K Streets) had a larger pipe organ with impressive façade pipes.
The current home of Westminster (completed in 1927 and located at 13th & N Streets across from Capitol Park) was originally equipped with a 28-rank Reuter pipe organ; in 1979 a new console was installed, and in 1983 a major expansion was completed by the M. P. Möller Organ Company. More recent additions include: 8' state trumpet, 32' contra bourdon, 32' contra bombarde, and new swell reeds. Future additions include: gallery 8' festival trumpet; gallery 8', 4', 2' principal and mixture; redesigned swell division; new solid-state console.
As Westminster enters it's 150th year, exciting plans are evolving to continue our tradition of musical excellence and service to the greater Sacramento community. (See photos of our recently installed 26" church bell.) You are invited to celebrate the joy with us!
For more information, contact Brad Slocum.
1866 to the Present
An old photograph [now missing] shows a tiny console in the old wooden church, about the size of an upright piano, with a few small pipes sticking out behind the choir loft. At the right of the instrument is a black screen, hiding the person who stood there, pumping air into the windchest to keep up the pressure as the organist played, and as the congregation sang "We gather together... ." That was
Architects and designers of the new building, following the trends of the times, decided [in 1926] that an organ should be heard and not seen, and tucked the pipes away in hidden chambers, expecting the music to drift into the sanctuary through heavy lattice masonry: It was a clean, uncluttered, impressive design that earned raves for its beauty, but at the expense of muffling some of the brighter organ sounds. Built to meet the architectural and budgetary constraints by Reuter Organ Company of
But
The 1983 Möller organ, made in
An organ without an organist is a tool without a craftsman; and organists are born, not made. The Bible calls them the descendants of Jubal, "father of all such as handle the harp and the organ." Such men and women spend a good share of their lives sitting on a hard wooden bench at a console, in a cold or hot sanctuary, under arduous self-discipline, fulfilling their destiny and enriching the lives of all who listen. Among the keyboard artists who have poured full measure of time and talent into
John Milton might well have been sitting in a sanctuary pew, hearing the grand Möller Organ when he wrote:
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear
As may, with sweetness, through mine ear
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
Notes:
The above history (with a few updates and edits) was taken from the