After a few months and the Christmas Holidays I have finally finished Tone 2 of my planned recorded survey of the 8 tones in English.

This compilation has most of the tones used by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, thus focusing on Galician (Halych) tones including: troparion and kondakion, samohlasen, alleluia/prokeimenon, the so-called "Bulgarian" tones, sessional troparion, and a few irmosy which are labeled with tone numbers (even if they seem not to correspond with any tone).

I also took the liberty, since the UGCC is a Church of the Kyivan tradition as well, to include the Kyivan (Kievan/Obikhod) troparion, samohlasen, alleluia, and irmos melodies as well.

This is in no way meant to be an official release backed by any organization. It is only the work of a private cantor.

I took most texts, if possible, from the Anthology, the UGCC's official English DIvine Liturgy book, or from the Sheptytsky Institute's Vespers (4th Edition).
Any additional texts were taken from either the Royal Doors website (royaldoors.net) or from the Basilian Divine Office (Stamford, republished in 2014, making use of some and - to be honest - ignoring other solicited and submitted corrections, since it was first published in the 1990's). Despite its title, this book isn't really so much a full Divine Office, as it is a kind of "Byzantine Breviary", well suited for those who travel, or cannot afford to buy the complete library of all the Byzantine liturgical books that would be necessary for praying the Office in toto. Wherever it has been necessary I have exercised a preference towards Anthology texts since it is common knowledge that His Beatitude Patriarch (Major Archbishop) Sviatoslav has issued official pastoral letters, persistently and consistently "asking" our individual hierarchs, religious orders, eparchies, etc. to cease and desist from publishing liturgical texts "on their own", since there is a Patriarchal Liturgical Commission which is working on official translations; and, since it has always been the prerogative and duty of the Patriarch (i.e. Major Archbishop), alone, to promulgate and publish texts for our UGC Church, after its Synod of Bishops has had a chance to approve of them.

Music is from the Anthology for Resurrectional Troparion and Prokeimenon/Alleluia melodies (including Tone 1 Kyivan Alleluia) although there is also a wonderful CD companion to the Anthology which offers examples of most of the music found there demonstrated by the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter. (www.sheptytskyinstitute.ca/resources/publications/)

Samohlasen melodies were largely from the MASI Vespers book as well as the music for the Dogmatika. Recording the Dogmatika would not, however, have been possible without the work of Fr. Ruslan Hrekh (Руслан Грех) and his CD Передсущий Явився (www.cdbaby.com/cd/revruslanhrekh). Also check out the Youtube channel www.youtube.com/user/oruslan0303.

Additional music for Sessional Troparia, Bulgarian Tones, and all of the Kyivan/Obikhod were found on unmercenary.com, a wonderful collection of chant from many traditions.

I also checked as much as I could with the book Церковні наспіви by Володимир Головко published by Свічадо, the publishing house of the Studite Brethren. You can find it at svichado.com/cerkovni-naspivi.html. It really is a wonderful resource which contains all of the Galician Tones from the basics to Dogmatika and Irmosy.

I also owe much to my teachers, in particular both to my father, a Byzantine-Catholic Priest, and our parish's cantor, who occasionally goes by the Pseudonym "The Compiler."

I pray that I haven't hurt anyone or stepped on anyone's toes and that this and the following recordings can be of some service to someone.

I again stress that I in no way intend for this to be though of as some sort of official release. If you wish to download these, since Bandcamp does put a cap on how many times one can listen before downloading, I ask that you go for the free download since I do not want to accept any money for music and arrangements which are not my own. If, by the Grace of God, you should happen to be the 201st person in any month to download and are thus incapable of getting a free download, please just wait until the next month.

God Bless,
Your brother in Christ,
A Byzantine Cantor