JPP,
Our group actually does chant services, mostly Great Vespers, of feast days for the churches in our area. We did a couple of funerals, Great Compline services, and we have informally done Orthros and Liturgy. ("Informally", meaning we didn't really rehearse,
per se, but whoever was able to come just showed up at the
Analogion and chanted, following music that I selected.) Yes, we have also presented themed concerts for Great Lent, Holy Week and Christmas, and as a bonus we have even sung traditional songs of Asia Minor (our favorites), Constantinople and Greece! (Not in church, of course, but usually during the "wine and cheese" reception after the main concert. We basically go where we are invited, and we have been fortunate to have had considerable "air-time" on Philadelphia's only Greek-American program, "
The Greek Spirit". Thank God, we have been well-received by the community and we are discussing a format for our next CD, which we hope will come to fruition one day.
Look: we are not professionals, and not everyone can even read the music, believe it or not. But they all have a love for the art, and a desire to keep Byzantine Music alive and well. We are the only group of this kind in the entire Metropolis of New Jersey, and although we can't travel to every single parish because of the distances, our Metropolitan always enjoys when we participate in vespers where he is officiating. In a country where our Greek Orthodox Churches are primarily dominated by western-style mixed choirs with booming organs and screeching sopranos, our Byzantine Choir is, we feel, a breath of fresh air to a congregation who is looking to experience the Divine Services in a mystical and penitential, yet always majestic, form.
Apostolos