‘Pro­claim­ing the Eter­nal Truth through Sacred Music’

You have reached the Mis­sion Page of the “Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian Music Project”, a site cre­ated by it’s founder, Com­poser and Choir Direc­tor Robert Sirico, for the advance­ment of sacred music both litur­gi­cal in func­tion and devo­tional in spirit.

The cat­e­chism of the Ortho­dox Church is no more clearly expressed than in the ancient hymnog­ra­phy sung dur­ing the sacred ser­vices of the litur­gi­cal year. We, as com­posers of Sacred Music, say noth­ing new or express our own opin­ions.  Rather, we echo what has been time­lessly repeated by the Holy Ortho­dox and Catholic Church which pro­claims ‘Jesus Christ who is the same yes­ter­day, today, and for­ever ….’ (Heb 13:8)

The Mis­sion of the ‘Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian Music Project’ is mul­ti­fac­eted and it’s works include:

1. Bring­ing the sacred texts of the ancient church to the ears of the mod­ern lis­tener by assim­i­lat­ing and re-presenting them through orig­i­nal music rooted in ancient forms.  When one plumbs the riches of the texts of var­i­ous hymno­g­ra­phers from var­i­ous peri­ods in the churches’ his­tory, there is an astound­ing cor­pus which reflects the diver­sity of top­ics for which, and needs of per­sons about whom, the church prayed.  The church has always been con­cerned for the wel­fare of her suf­fer­ing souls here on earth as well as for their eter­nal sal­va­tion in the age to come.  This is nowhere more appar­ent than by sur­vey­ing the table of con­tents of the Menan­ion or the ‘Great Book of Needs’.

2. Char­i­ta­ble Outreach

It is the explicit objec­tive of the OCMP to com­pose new music from the ancient sacred texts and to pre­mier these works in con­certs, prayer ser­vices, or Divine Litur­gies to spir­i­tu­ally min­is­ter to the needs of the souls of our hear­ers, to raise social aware­ness about the needs of our suf­fer­ing brethren, and to coop­er­ate with the char­i­ta­ble works of  the Holy Ortho­dox and Catholic Church and orga­ni­za­tions such as the Inter­na­tional Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian Char­i­ties (IOCC).

3. Pro­mot­ing Good Musi­cian­ship and Pro­vid­ing Sup­port and Train­ing for Choir Staff of the Parishes in the Ortho­dox Church in America

As a future endeavor of the OCMP, sem­i­nars and work­shops are in devel­op­ment to pro­vide sup­port, train­ing, and music mate­ri­als for choir direc­tors, choir mem­bers, and ‘Read­ers’ to help them learn the cycle of ’Ser­vice Books’, pre­pare for the holy feasts, improve their singing tech­nique, and to chant fluidly.

Vision

As the Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian Music Project is still in its infancy, there is a long road ahead to achieve, by God’s grace, all the objec­tives listed in the mis­sion state­ment.  Nonethe­less, we are pleased to be of ser­vice to the Church and her flock, and hope to receive the bless­ings and finan­cial sup­port to con­tinue this min­istry for years to come.