Easter Music for your Church Choir
Welcome!
As a former church choir director (and current church organist), it is always a joy and a challenge to find anthems and cantatas / musicals for the Easter season. There are stunning classic pieces, great contemporary anthems, outstanding instrumental music - the list goes on and on. Having been involved mostly with small churches (with equally small church music budgets), I am always on the look out for good quality choral music @ good prices.
Here are some of my favorite resources - if you have others, please share them with me and I'll add them. Thanks!
Easter Music Choral Resources
Here are some resources for Easter music - for your choir, as well as your congregation.
- REJOICE Music
REJOICE Music sells good quality used church choir music. They have over 100 Easter / Lent anthems, as well as Easter musicals, orchestrations and accompaniment CDs. - Easter Repertoire Lists
ChoralNet has an extensive list of suggested anthems for the Easter season, broken down by instrumentation, themes and voicing. I highly recommend checking out these lists. (Scroll down this list to find "Easter" and "Lent" suggestions) - Sally DeFord Music
This is an AMAZING site containing choral, duet, solo and instrumental sheet music (PDF), with demo recordings for most selections (MP3). Everything is available for FREE download, or for your convenience, the entire site is also available on CD-ROM. - Composer Benjamin Harlan
Composer / arranger Benjamin Harlan has some great arrangements available on his website. He has arrangements of familiar hymns, for choir and congregational use, with keyboard accompaniment. Each arrangement costs $8.99, and there are sample pages a - Interactive Church Music Player
The LDS (Church of Later Day Saints) website has an interactive web page which allows you to view, listen to, transpose, and print the Church hymns and children's songs. It's a great feature when you need an Easter hymn tune, but need it in a differe
Ride On, King Jesus
Sandra Hodges and the Twin Cities Community Gospel Choir singing "Ride On, King Jesus". This is simply wonderful, IMHO - listen and be blessed!
Selecting Music for Easter - Some tips, articles, information
Here are a few resources and tips for classical as well as contemporary anthems. I always find it helpful to learn what churches are using for their services.
- Chossing an Easter Program that Works
Choosing the right program for your music ministry is important because you want it to be challenging yet enjoyable for those on your team. - Easter Song Selection
Tips for selecting Easter music from Jason Headley, a worship leader since 1996. - Quarternotz
A lovely blog with classical music suggestions for the season. - Complete Worship Musician
Good contemporary music selections for Easter. - Most Popular Easter Songs 2012
From the Catholic Worship Blog - provides song selections as well as links to YOutube videos.
Great Stuff on Amazon
Amazon can be a good choice for finding Easter musicals / cantatas. It is also a great resource for out-of-print items.
Learn more about Easter
Ever wonder how the date for Easter is determined? Here are some interesting links about the algorithm used, as well as details about Easter customs.
- When is Easter this year?
Details on how the date for Easter is calculated, plus information on other church seasons and events. - Happy Easter
Great resource with LOTS of information about Easter - Easter games, foods, crafts, dinner recipes, Easter music, plus details on how Easter is celebrated around the world. - Ecclesiastical Calendar
Link to program that calculates Easter and other ecclesiastical events for Orthodox and Western as well as information on past Easter dates (based on Julian and Gregorian calendars).
Classical Music Scores - Free downloads of public domain classic works
Need the Hallelujah Chorus ASAP? Looking for some lovely classical scores suitable for Easter or any time of the year? SingHarmony has a section of free PDFs, featuring the choruses from Handel's Messiah, as well as scores from Vivaldi's Gloria and Bach's Magnificat. FYI -- All of these works are in public domain.