Dr. Tikey Zes

October 10, 1927 – May 7, 2025

All of us at Cappella Romana mourn the recent passing of Tikey Zes, the most prolific composer of Greek Orthodox choral music in America.

Tikey’s connection to Cappella Romana reaches back even before our founding. He was an early mentor to our founder and music director, Alexander Lingas, and his influence and encouragement helped shape the ensemble in its formative years. His music has figured prominently in our programming since our inception in 1991, including our very first CD release, a monograph of his choral works. These included “Soma Christou”/“Receive the Body of Christ,” the communion verse for Paschaltide, written when he was only 19 and his most performed work to this day.

Over his long life he wrote arrangements of folk songs and chamber and orchestral music, with hundreds of works for use in the Greek Orthodox Church as his primary focus. Among his many contributions to Cappella Romana, Tikey composed a complete setting of the Divine Liturgy in Greek for us (1991, rev. 1996), a work we have both performed and recorded. Among many other works he also composed a luminous setting of verses from Psalm 103 for our collaborative concert and recording project Heaven and Earth.

More than a musical colleague, Tikey Zes was a dear friend. His wisdom, generosity, and deep spiritual artistry enriched all who knew him. We miss him and his recently departed wife Teddi dearly.

Cappella Romana is currently working with the Zes family to catalogue his compositions, sketches, recordings, and archival materials to ensure that his legacy endure.

If you would like to support this important work, please reach out to Mark Powell at the Cappella Romana office for more information.

Αἰωνία αὐτοῦ ἡ μνήμη.
May his memory be eternal.

From the obituary provided by his family:

Dr. Tikey Zes, esteemed composer, educator, and leader in Greek Orthodox liturgical music, passed away peacefully in his home in San Jose, California.

Born in Long Beach, California, on October 10, 1927, Tikey was the son of Athanasios and Anna Zes, who nurtured his early love of music. He began studying violin and piano at the age of five and regularly attended the Greek Orthodox Church, where he developed a lifelong passion for liturgical music. He began composing in high school, and then studied harmony and composition at Long Beach Community College under Jerrold Strang, a disciple of Arnold Schoenberg and Johannes Brahms. At the age of nineteen, Tikey arranged his most well-known hymn, Soma Christou, and it was officially published in 1950.

While in junior college, he served as organist and choir conductor at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Long Beach.  

In 1952, Tikey was drafted to serve in the Korean War where he served one tour of duty and used the G.I. bill to help pay for his education. He went on to earn both a Master of Music in Violin and Composition and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition under Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California.

In 1955, Dr. Zes moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and became choir director at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, then at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension in Oakland, where he met his wife, Teddi Zes. They married on September 8, 1963, and raised three children—Athan, Evan, and Anna-Matina—in a home filled with faith, creativity, laughter, and love.

In 1964, Dr. Zes joined the faculty of San Jose State University as a professor of music, teaching theory and composition until his retirement in 1991.  He was also concertmaster of the Musicke Faire Chamber Orchestra for many years, and during a sabbatical in 1976, traveled to Greece to study the notation and transcription of Post-Byzantine chant. After his retirement in 1991, he redoubled his devotion to Greek Orthodox church music for the next 34 years until the very moment of his passing.

Dr. Zes directed Greek Orthodox choirs across the country from 1950 onward and served as director of the St. Nicholas Choir in San Jose from 1971. He was a frequent guest conductor and clinician for Greek Orthodox choir federations nationwide and composed and arranged extensively for Orthodox liturgical services—including five complete liturgies, one in English—as well as numerous choral and piano works inspired by Greek folk and Byzantine music.

In recognition of his contributions, he was named an Archon of the Great Church of Christ by Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios in 1976. In 1993, he was appointed Music Minister for the Greek Orthodox Diocese of San Francisco, where he led many Church Music Institutes. In 2005 and 2006, he inaugurated the first-ever Conductor Training Academy for the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States.

Dr. Zes was a devoted Greek Orthodox Christian, a passionate educator, a pioneering composer, a dedicated husband, a beloved father and proud papou. His contributions to church music continue to inspire and uplift congregations, with the beauty and depth of his work resonating in the hearts and voices of faithful communities everywhere.

He is preceded in death by his beloved wife, Teddi Zes (2021). He is survived by his children: Athan Zes and his wife Christine, and their children Alex and Evan; Evan Zes and his wife Nicole; and his loving daughter, Anna-Matina Zes.