The small choir sang its heart out, filling Kawaiaha‘o Church with sweet sounds. But then Malia Ka‘ai-Barrett stepped out and stood alone for a solo.

Dressed in white and barefoot, Ka‘ai-Barrett began to sing Georges Bizet’s "Agnus Dei." Her voice swelled, effortlessly climbing to the back upstairs pews. Without amplification, it was truly an electrifying performance.

Music is a common feature of church services, and Hawaii’s houses of worship are blessed with high-quality music in a wide variety of styles.

"There’s kind of a smorgasbord of music programs, where you can go from the classical and the Bach cantatas to the music that you’d hear on TV," said Don Conover, the retired music minister at Church of the Crossroads in Moiliili, which under his ministry featured a wide range of music. "You can go to a church and hear mediocre music, but you can also go to a place like Kawaiaha‘o and hear someone with the quality of Malia.

"It’s just something that’s done every Sunday. The churches don’t advertise unless they have a particular concert coming up, but many of these things happen on Sunday just as part of the regular church service."

Kawaiaha‘o’s program, led by Buddy Nalua‘i, also features performances by a handbell choir and occasional appearances by the Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus. But other than Ka‘ai-Barrett’s occasional solos, the historic church’s main claim to fame is its collection of Hawaiian music, some written by royalty, which is a regular part of services.

"It’s a great resource, a treasure to have this music," said Nalua‘i, who plays organ for services and often brings a jazzy note to the proceedings.

Kawaiaha‘o is one of several churches in Hono­lulu with long-standing and extensive music programs that extend beyond the basic church choir.

Last year the Lutheran Church of Hono­lulu in Makiki hired a new music director, Miguel Felipe, who at first featured much of the traditional church repertoire.

"We are still dedicated to music of the highest artistic quality … from the Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran traditions, a lot of Renaissance and Baroque," Felipe said.

Such works are featured mainly at the 10:30 a.m. Sunday service, at which the church’s advanced choir performs.

The Lutheran Church of Hono­lulu, under previous music director Carl Crosier, had organized the Bach Chamber Orchestra for special performances for Christmas and Easter. He also started the Vespers concerts, which offered "a really rich musical performance, usually with an orchestra" for various holidays, and the Abendmusiken (evening music) series, which featured performances of classical music in a concert setting.

Felipe has kept those, but he’s started to change the repertoire slightly, featuring Handel’s "Israel in Egypt," a work in oratorio style (a large-scale work for orchestra and voices), at St. Andrew’s in February.

"Oratorio was one place (Carl) had not gone," Felipe said.

Taking Bach’s cantatas as inspiration, Felipe is working to expand that genre. He has asked New York composer Robinson McClelland to write a new cantata, which features a virtuosic violin part to take advantage of first Bach Chamber Orchestra concertmaster Darel Stark’s talents. The work will debut May 26.

"It still has the trademark Bach feel," Felipe said. "It ends with a big hymn tune, but instead of a hymn that a 1730s audience might recognize, it’s a hymn tune that my congregation will recognize."

For those who would like to hear some music in the evening, try the Lutheran Church of Hono­lulu or the Cathedral of St. Andrew. The former has evening prayer at 7:30 p.m. on the first and third Sundays of every month, while St. Andrew has Evensong at 5:30 p.m. Sundays. It’s one of the "many layers" to St. Andrew’s music program, said John Renke, director of music.

"The Anglican cathedral tradition (of music) is very much entrenched here," Renke said, adding that it was what attracted Queen Emma and King Kame­ha­meha IV to the church.

St. Andrew’s main choral group, the Cathedral Choir, "does everything," Renke said. "We do Gregorian chant, contemporary composers like Britten and Stravinsky, commissioned works."

The choir has 16 voices, eight of which are paid positions with the title "choral scholars." It is considered one of the top choral ensembles on the island and is somewhat unusual in that it regularly features a countertenor voice — the "male soprano" — that gives vocal works a ringing quality.

Renke said many of the singers have come from other churches — Renke checks to make sure they have permission — because they are interested in the more challenging repertoire he does.

"We just had some visitors from England who’d just been on a world cruise, going all over the place listening to services, and they said it was the best choir they’d heard their whole time," Renke said. "They were in a good mood that day, I guess."

St. Andrew’s Cathedral is noted for its acoustics, which enhances every musical performance. It’s no mystery why the Lutheran Church of Hono­lulu, when seeking to stage large productions like Bach’s "B Minor Mass" or the Monteverdi "Vespers," would opt for St. Andrew, or that the now defunct Hono­lulu Symphony chose to give its final performance there in 2010.

"It’s something you wouldn’t necessarily expect out in the middle of the ocean, a building of this stature," Renke said. "The organ, the choir, everything is enhanced. That’s why it’s become such a popular venue."

The public can <$o($)>enjoy those acoustics outside of Sunday services as "Noontime Concerts in the Cathedral" at 12:15 p.m. Wednesdays. Renke programs things like piano recitals, chamber music, classical guitar, even mainland guest artists; a boys choir from Amarillo, Texas, was recently onstage.

Renke often plays the church’s organ himself at these concerts, featuring what he called "an incredibly fine instrument." That organ, along with the organ at Central Union Church, is used when major guest performers come to Hawaii, another way the public can enjoy music in churches. The concerts are sponsored by the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists, which invites artists from the mainland or Europe.

Central Union Church also hosts a "Midsummer Night’s Organ Concert" of local musicians young and old, one of several concerts it holds every year. Its regular music program offers four chances to hear music Sunday morning: at a 7 a.m. "contemplative" service, a "gift of music" at 8:45 a.m., a classic service at 9 a.m. and a "contemporary" service at 11 a.m. that features a five- to six-member band of professional musicians that performs pop-style sacred music.

The "gift of music" concert is where one might find something unusual for a church performance, since Margaret Lloyd, director of music ministries, encourages diversity in its programming. It has featured everything from musicians from the church and invited guests to students preparing for a competition or audition.

"Robert Cazimero’s been here," she said. "We’ve even had Celtic pipes and drums."

Central Union’s program employs several well-known musicians either as performers or teachers. Musicians such as Hawaiian stylist Wade Cambern, Catherine Goto of Punahou School and symphony musicians Claire Starz Butin and Constance Uejio have played key roles in the music of the church.

Central Union’s extensive choral program sponsors nine choral groups, ranging from choirs for kids as young as age 4 to a Hawaiian choir, Ke Aloha Pau­‘oli. The groups combine during certain seasons or for certain events, such as the Oratorio Choir, which comes together specifically to perform Handel’s "Messiah" for a spring concert.

"I would hope that the ministry enhances the corporate worship experience and brings musical offerings as a gift to God," she said.

For something completely different in the church music experience, one might try Unity Church near Diamond Head. Its hourlong services, which are held at 7, 9 and 11 a.m. Sundays, feature a half-dozen or more pop tunes and often end with people dancing in the aisles. The church has a regular group of paid studio musicians, headed each week by a professional entertainer chosen by the Rev. Sky St. John.

"I look for singers in musical theater, I look for them in the bars," he said. "I was an entertainer for 15 years, so a lot of them I know are spiritual people."

He demands professionalism out of his performances, expecting memorization and an appealing presentation as well as good singing.

"Perform it from the heart, not behind the music stand," he said.

"There’s a lot of different tastes in music, and a lot of them are dictated by generation," he said. "If we don’t attract younger people, we’re going to die, and younger people resonate with younger music."