Posts Tagged ‘Byzantine Chant’
An All-Night Vigil for St. Richard of Wessex: An Old Saint is Venerated Anew
Overview: On the evening of 6 February 2022, Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church in Somerville, Massachusetts celebrated an All-Night Vigil (full festal Vespers, Orthros, and Divine Liturgy served consecutively) for Saint Richard of Wessex (7 February, +722 A.D.). At the altar were three priests: Rev. Fr. Anthony Tandilyan, proistamenos of Dormition Rev.…
Continue reading »Review: Great and Holy Pascha and The Mystic Pascha
In a recent panel discussion on music for the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University, composer Benedict Sheehan made the observation that the publication of musical anthologies tends to solidify and codify generational snapshots of particular traditions, carrying authoritative weight for those who use it as a resource. These anthologies… put on the page…
Continue reading »Acoustical Considerations in Orthodox Church Design
As a designer of Orthodox churches, I am frequently asked whether a proposed church building will have good acoustics. Acoustics is a complex matter that cannot always be catagorized as simply “good” or “bad”. In order to shed some light on this topic, I am going to discuss the various acoustical characteristics encountered in churches,…
Continue reading »Byzantine Music is Choral Music
Some years ago, a singer who was primarily active in Russian Orthodox choral music pulled me aside at a church music event. “Can I be honest with you about something?” this person said to me. “I don’t understand Byzantine music. To me, it looks like it’s either a soloist or a group of mostly men;…
Continue reading »Worship in the Workshop: Providing Opportunities to Raise the Bar
The joke is at times heard that in the chapels of some of our seminaries, they “don’t worship but workshop.” The sense of this witticism is that what happens in their services is experimentation with rubrics, texts, service order, with an impulse towards “reform.” Over the course of this last summer, however, I was blessed…
Continue reading »Coming Soon: The Liturgical Arts Academy, August 18-24 2019
English-speaking Orthodox faithful in the United States who have wanted to learn the liturgical arts of the Orthodox Church — music, iconography, vestments, architecture and furnishings design, etc. — have historically had limited opportunities to study with knowledgeable teachers. Some have had the opportunity to go overseas to countries such as Greece and Russia to…
Continue reading »The Dynamis Byzantine Ensemble – A New Recording Showcasing the Best of Byzantine Chant in English
Byzantine chant is an ever-evolving art form, responding to the advances put forth in both music and hymnography by the great personalities who have shaped it, such as Saint Romanos the Melodist, Saint John of Damascus, Saint John Koukouzelis, and Peter the Peloponnesian. However, all the men mentioned above were active within a wider movement…
Continue reading »In Defense of Metrical Translations
A liturgical craft that ideally draws very little attention to itself is that of translation — particularly, the translation of hymnography. The English texts that we hear in church were translated by somebody, and that translator also had to make them natural-sounding and singable in English. In addition, there is also the question of whether…
Continue reading »Liturgical Furniture for an Historic Cathedral
I was asked, in 2015, to design a set of liturgical furniture for Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Baltimore. When I looked at the building, I could see that this would be a complex project with several stylistic influences in play. The monumental structure was built by a Protestant congregation in 1888 in the ‘Richardsonian…
Continue reading »UPDATE: Seven Successful Candidates to Receive Certificates in Byzantine Music
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article appeared last week, before the examinations had taken place. This entry serves to report on the outcome of the examinations. For the first time in history, an American academic institution has awarded a Certificate of Byzantine Music. Eight applicants were examined by a board of five renowned Byzantine cantors last weekend…
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