The Holy Liturgy in the Orthodox Church can be said to be the aspiration towards, if not the actualization of, a “complete work of art” – a synthesis of all the arts – whether it be music, painting, mosaic, embroidery, poetry, architecture, sculpture, choreography, rhetoric, etc., at the service of theology and divine worship. […]
At the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow … and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. —Phil. 2:10, 11 I You might remember the old song in which a man and woman argue about pronunciation. “You like potayto and I like potahto; you like tomayto and I like […]
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 […]
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 […]
(This interview with Russian conductor Vladimir Gorbik was first published in Pravoslavie i sovremennost, the official journal of the Diocese of Saratov, Russia) As previously reported in the Orthodox Arts Journal, a new symphony orchestra has been established in Moscow under the direction of Vladimir Gorbik—chief choirmaster of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Representation (Podvorye) in […]
Recently, iconographer Aidan Hart published the thought-provoking essay “Hand and machine: Making liturgical furnishings”. Mr. Hart’s piece is part of an ongoing exploration by liturgical artists of the question of how technology has changed, and is continuing to change, our relationship to crafts that have up until recently been done by hand. Liturgical designer Andrew Gould has […]
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 […]
As part of their Sacred Arts Initiative, St-Vladimir Seminary is organizing an event with our own Father Ivan Moody. The event is titled Past, Present and Future of Orthodox Music , and some of the tone and content can be already gleaned from the interview that was done with fr. Ivan by Dr. Peter Bouteneff […]
First published in Composing and Chanting in the Orthodox Church: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Orthodox Church Music, Joensuu: ISOCM/University of Joensuu, 2009, 337-342 © 2009 Ivan Moody All rights reserved. The Idea of Canonicity in Orthodox Liturgical Art Ivan Moody “Divine beauty is transmitted to all that exists, and it is […]
Registration now open for Minneapolis event Minneapolis, MN – The International Society for Orthodox Church Music (www.isocm.com) will host a pan-Orthodox music symposium at St Mary’s Orthodox Cathedral from Wednesday, June 22 through Sunday, June 26, 2016. The event will include presentations and workshops, music reading sessions, rehearsals, and will culminate in a festive hierarchical […]