Orthodox Liturgical Music

A blessed Lent to you all!

I have added some services I have been working on for a long time: Little Compline, with the Canons of the Akathist and St. Lazarus (it is also served with the full Canon of St. Andrew on the fifth Thursday in Lent), and Bridegroom Matins, served on the evenings of Palm Sunday, Holy Monday and Holy Tuesday.  Both services are meant to be chanted with Kazan music, but all the text is included, so they could be read or free-chanted if desired.

Greetings to all! I have finally updated this site after a long absence; I am surprised and delighted with the large number of visitors that have used it in the meantime.

All of the music here has been re-organized into liturgical periods and specific services, which I think will make individual pieces easier to find as the library grows. The Kazan music has thus been redistributed; the pieces I have here are really a very small sampling, so if you want a better overview of his arrangements, I recommend purchasing the Kazan Project, of which Vespers and Matins have been computerized and cleaned up (other volumes are forthcoming, but the current versions are perfectly usable.)  It is available from the Antiochian Archdiocese.

I have also upgraded to Finale 2005b. Literally days after I purchased the upgrade and learned how to use it, Finale 2006 came out. Sigh . . . I suppose I’m doomed to remain a little behind the times.  Unfortunately, I have learned that Finale is not backwards-compatible, so some of the pieces on this site will not be accessible with Finale 2003 and some will (depending on whether or not I have revised them since upgrading.)

My next big project is to finish putting into Finale the services of Little Compline – including the Akathist Canon and Canon of St. Lazarus – and Bridegroom Matins. They are almost completed, so check back in a couple of weeks!

As always, I appreciate the e-mails with helpful critique, and the e-mails just to say hello.  I've made many new friends through this site!  God bless you all.

A note about kinds of files used on this site:

*.PDF (Portable Document Format) files, created with Adobe Acrobat, can be viewed with a free copy of Adobe Reader, which is available here.  They're great for easy onscreen viewing and printing, but not much else.

*.MUS files, created in Finale, can also be viewed for free with a copy of Finale Notepad, which is available here.  With Finale Notepad, you can not only view the file; you can also edit it and play it back (a good option for those who don't read music well and want a quick overview.) 

If you are interested in composing or arranging your own music, or entering previously written works, I highly recommend you purchase Finale 2005, which is available half-price ($300) for academic and religious use.  Visit Finale's website for more information.

Thanks to all of you who have visited, downloaded and passed the word on to your friends!  This site has had almost a thousand visitors in just over a month.  I knew that many Orthodox musicians struggle with poor-quality photocopies and get stuck in the rut of using the same arrangements over and over, but I had no idea how many people would be interested in my little projects!  I am so glad they have been helpful.

I am starting an e-mail list for notification purposes.  If you want to know when I add something to this site, click on "E-mail Site Administrator" on the right sidebar and send me your address.  I am also open to comments and suggestions for the site, as well as music you might like to see here at some point.

I pray you will all have a peaceful and uplifting Lenten season and a most  joyous Pascha!

Welcome!  This site was thrown together in an afternoon as a place for Orthodox musicians to download and reproduce copies of music I have entered into Finale.  As such, please feel free to download any of the available documents.   If you have music to share, please send me an e-mail with the details.

Note that all music on this website is protected by the individual rights of its composers, of which some are unknown.  If you own the rights to any of these pieces and would rather they not be distributed freely, please let me know immediately!  This is a completely nonprofit site dedicated to Orthodox musicians and the beauty of Orthodox worship.