Posts by Benedict Sheehan
Saint Tikhon Choir & Company Release Chart-Topping Album
South Canaan, PA—On August 28, the world-premiere recording of Alexander Kastalsky’s Requiem was released by Naxos Records. The recording—which was made during a live performance in the Washington National Cathedral in October of 2018 in celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the World War I Armistice—features the combined forces of multiple GRAMMY-winning ensembles, including the Cathedral Choral…
Continue reading »A Recording of the Kastalsky Requiem – Fundraising Request
In 1917, Russian composer Alexander Kastalsky wrote a monumental Requiem commemorating the Allied slain of World War I. He brought together melodies from all the religious traditions of the Allies, weaving them into a harmonious and triumphant whole, memorializing those who gave their lives in service to their nation. The work is testament to the…
Continue reading »Benedict Sheehan: Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (2018)
Liturgical Music in America Liturgical music is closely bound up with the people that sing it. Language, history, culture, experience, education, social class, all of these things shape the sound-world of worship. The people that founded Orthodox parishes in America more than a century ago—for the most part, immigrants from Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe, and…
Continue reading »Good Church Music Starts with Kids
In response to some important questions I’ve gotten about teaching kids to sing in church, I’ve asked my wife Maria Sheehan, a longtime music teacher, to write a guest post based on her experience. — Benedict Editor’s note: This article is republished from Benedict Sheehan’s blog, The Music Stand. *** I have been a vocal…
Continue reading »Till Morn Eternal Breaks
On November 9, a new recording by the Chamber Choir of St. Tikhon’s Monastery of original compositions and arrangements, entitled “Till Morn Eternal Breaks: Sacred Choral Music of Benedict Sheehan,” will go on sale from St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press. (To pre-order, visit stspress.com) The project is the first of its kind: a recording of new Orthodox music…
Continue reading »The State of Church Singing in America: An Interview with Choirmaster Benedict Sheehan
Editor’s Note: This interview appeared originally on pravoslavie.ru, with questions posed by Jesse Dominick. Benedict Sheehan is a composer, conductor, arranger, writer about, and teacher of, music. He currently plies his trade at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and Monastery, where, since 2010, he has taught Orthodox liturgical music and directed the choirs. Benedict is also a regular…
Continue reading »Till Morn Eternal Breaks—A Concert of New Music to Benefit St. Tikhon’s
Today’s press release from St. Tikhon’s Seminary: SOUTH CANAAN, PA (August 31, 2015) – The Chamber Choir of St. Tikhon’s Monastery, a professional vocal ensemble under the auspices of America’s oldest Orthodox monastery, will give a concert in New York City on November 12 at the Roman Catholic church of St. John Nepomucene at 66th and…
Continue reading »A New Landmark: Steinberg’s “Passion Week”
Every so often a record comes along that changes the landscape of choral music. Robert Shaw’s 1989 recording of the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil comes to mind. It remains one of Shaw’s finest recordings, and, in my opinion, still the best overall recording of the piece to the date, minor flaws in interpretation and Slavonic diction…
Continue reading »On History and Tradition: A Review of Cappella Romana’s “Good Friday in Jerusalem”
For makers of music, history, by its mere existence, presents challenges. A recent headline in the Onion ran, “Nation’s Historians Warn The Past Is Expanding At Alarming Rate.” While we can smile at the joke, there’s a way in which the specter of an “ever-enlarging past” does really keep musicians up at night. Every Western composer since Beethoven has…
Continue reading »The Picture and the Frame
“A painter paints pictures on canvas, but musicians paint their pictures on silence.” —Leopold Stokowski It is a curious thing that most of the earth, most of the time, is completely silent—forests, mountain ranges, deserts, prairies, glaciers, oceans, the vast expanse of the sky: all totally silent save perhaps for the call of a bird…
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