I would like to call your attention to the following events.
Spiro Antonopoulos, City University London
*
*
*Cappella Romana*, the world’s leading early music vocal ensemble for the
broad exploration of music of the Eastern Orthodox traditions, especially
medieval Byzantine chant, returns to London for the first time since 2009
when it was engaged by the Royal Academy of Arts for its mega-exhibition
‘Byzantium: 323-1453’.
The ensemble will appear in two engagements in London this May 2013, a
mini-symposium on Byzantine chant at the Hellenic Centre on 14-May and a
full evening concert at St. Bartholomew-the-Great on 15-May, before
additional tour performances at the noted German early music festival ‘Tage
Alter Musik <http://www.tagealtermusik-regensburg.de/index.php?page=k02>’
in Regensburg, and in Athens and Patras, Greece.
*Tuesday, 14 May**: Byzantine Chant Mini-Symposium & Recital at the
Hellenic Centre*
5:00 pm: Mini-symposium<http://www.helleniccentre.org/pages/events-culture/upcoming-events/byzantine-chant-symposium.php>;
7:30 pm: Byzantine Chant
Recital<http://www.helleniccentre.org/pages/events-culture/upcoming-events/byzantine-chant-recital.php>
The Great Hall at the Hellenic Centre <http://www.helleniccentre.org/>
16-18 Paddington St. Marylebone, London W1U 5AS
Free admission, reservation recommended (+44 20 7487 5060).
*Programme*
Cappella Romana, in collaboration with the School of Byzantine Music and
the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, presents a
mini-symposium and recital of Byzantine chant. Leading liturgical scholars
and musicologists from the UK and Greece discuss the musical repertories of
Byzantine chant, issues of notation and performance practice, and the
hermeneutics of music in worship, in a short series of workshop-style
papers aimed to reach a broad spectrum of the public, from early music
enthusiasts and liturgy scholars to students and practitioners of Byzantine
chant.
Following a short interval, the choir of the Archdiocesan School of
Byzantine Music, led by Fr. Joseph Paliouras, will participate in a short
recital with Cappella Romana. The day will conclude with an informal
reception.
*Wednesday, 15 May**: Evening Concert at St Bartholomew-the-Great*
8:00 pm (doors open at 7:30 pm): Desert and City – Medieval Byzantine Chant
from the Holy Land<https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Events/Pages/event-detail.aspx?eventid=1110>
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great <http://goo.gl/maps/ajfyB>
Cloth Fair, EC1 (closest tube stations: Barbican or St. Paul’s)
Tickets £25 £18; Concessions 50% off (limited availability)
Click here<http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/search/searchPerformanceDetails.asp?performance_id=61392&sid=>
to
book tickets.
*Programme*
The full programme at the Priory Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great
features Medieval Byzantine chant, the fraternal repertoire to Latin chant
in the West. It opens with music for the celebrations of Holy Week composed
in and around Jerusalem from the seventh to the ninth centuries by the
city’s great church fathers: Patriarch Sophronios, Kosmas the Melodist, and
Saint John Damascene. This music receives its UK premiere with this tour
performance.
The programme continues with excerpts of the hauntingly beautiful Great
Vespers for the Feast of St Catherine of Alexandria as it might have been
celebrated at her monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt during the fifteenth
century, including works by St John Koukouzeles (late 13th-early 14th c)
and Manuel Chrysaphes the Lampadarios (mid-15th c), cantor to the last
Emperor of the Byzantines Empire. This portion of the programme is featured
on Cappella Romana’s recent CD release ‘Voices of Byzantium’ published by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
*All performing editions by Ioannis Arvanitis*
For more information, see www.cappellaromana.org/london2013 or contact
Spyridon Antonopoulos at [log in to unmask]
*Cappella Romana, Alexander Lingas, artistic director and conductor*
Its performances ‘like jeweled light flooding the space’ (*Los Angeles Times
*), *Cappella Romana* is a vocal chamber ensemble dedicated to combining
passion with scholarship in its exploration of the musical traditions of
the Christian East and West, with emphasis on early and contemporary music.
Founded in 1991, Cappella Romana’s name (lit. ‘Roman chapel’) refers to the
medieval Greek concept of the Roman *oikoumene* (inhabited world), which
embraced Rome and Western Europe, as well as the Byzantine Empire of
Constantinople (‘New Rome’) and its Slavic commonwealth. Each program in
some way reflects the musical, cultural and spiritual heritage of this
ecumenical vision.
Flexible in size according to the demands of the repertory, Cappella Romana
is based in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, where it presents annual
concert series in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. It regularly
tours in Europe and North America, having appeared at venues including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J Paul Getty Center, St. Paul’s
Cathedral in London, the Pontificio Istituto Orientale in Rome, the Sacred
Music Festival of Patmos, the University of Oxford, Princeton University,
and Yale University.
Cappella Romana has released over a dozen compact discs, including *Byzantium
330–1453* (the official companion CD to the Royal Academy of Arts
Exhibition),* Byzantium in Rome: Medieval Byzantine Chant from
Grottaferrata, The Fall of Constantinople, Richard Toensing: Kontakion on
the Nativity of Christ,* *Peter Michaelides: The Divine Liturgy of St. John
Chrysostom, The Divine Liturgy in English: The Complete Service in
Byzantine Chant*, *Mt. Sinai: Frontier of Byzantium, *and its recent
release made in Greece of medieval Byzantine and contemporary
Greek-American choral works called *Live in Greece: From Constantinople to
California. *Forthcoming releases include a choral setting of the Divine
Liturgy in Greek by Tikey Zes, a disc of choral works of the Finnish
Orthodox Church directed by the Rev Dr Ivan Moody, the environmental
oratorio *A Time for Life *by Robert Kyr and a disc of 15th-century Greek
and Latin music from the island of Cyprus.
In 2010 it became a participant in the research project ‘Icons of Sound:
Aesthetics and Acoustics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’, a collaboration
between Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and
Acoustics (CCRMA) and Department of Art & Art History. Cappella Romana
completed a residency at Stanford again in 2013, which included further
experiments with CCRMA, lecture demonstrations, and a live performance in
Stanford’s new Bing Hall, featuring a medieval Byzantine chant sung in the
virtual acoustic of Hagia Sophia before a sold-out audience. The ensemble
also performed ‘Holy Friday in Medieval Jerusalem’ in Stanford’s
Byzantine-inspired Memorial Church, where it also completed recording
sessions of the same programme, excerpts of which are heard for a future
release.
*Alexander Lingas*
Cappella Romana’s founder and artistic director* Alexander Lingas,* is a
Senior Lecturer in Music at City University London and a Fellow of the
University of Oxford’s European Humanities Research Centre. Formerly
Assistant Professor of Music History at Arizona State University’s School
of Music, he received his PhD in Historical Musicology from the University
of British Columbia. His awards include Fulbright and Onassis grants for
musical studies with cantor Lycourgos Angelopoulos, the British Academy’s
Thank-Offering to Britain Fellowship, and the St Romanos the Melodist
medallion of the National Forum for Greek Orthodox Church Musicians (USA).
Having contributed articles to *The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians,* and *The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, *Dr Lingas is
now completing two monographs: a study of Sunday Matins in the Rite of
Hagia Sophia for Ashgate and a historical introduction to Byzantine Chant
for Yale University Press.
*Cappella Romana partners:*
These events are made possible in part by grants, contributions, and
assistance from the Higher Education Innovation Fund through City
University London, BBC Radio 3, the Hellenic Centre, and the Greek Orthodox
Archdiocese of Thyateira in Great Britain. This engagement is also
supported by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through *USArtists International* in
partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation.
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