"Global Approaches to Sacred Space" Workshop: Nektarios Antoniou, "Of Bodies and Spirits: Present-day Byzantine Music Notation and its Liturgical Use in the Services"

Of Bodies and Spirits: Present-day Byzantine Music Notation and its Liturgical Use in the Services

After an initial discussion of the origins of liturgical music, a brief reference to its early periods of transcription and use in Byzantine worship, we will discuss the received tradition of the Octoechos (eight-modes), and present the approach of The New Method of Musical Notation in Eastern Orthodox Chant, the Great Theory of Music by Chrysanthos, his Trochos (Wheel) and icons of sounds.

Nektarios Antoniou, DMA is the Artistic & Founding Director of Schola Cantorum, he commissioned and curated the Iconic Arvo Pärt World Premiere and Tribute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, performed the MET’s historic Byzantine Pop- Ups concert series and executively produced and performed the Armenian Pop-Ups, Jerusalem: Every Nation Under Heaven, St. Nicholas Feast and others.  At Yale he co-curated and conducted his Schola at the Credo Concert In honor of Jaroslav Pelikan (Live on NPR) and served as Lead Editor for music at the University’s Palimpsest Arts Magazine, introduced and curated the Yale ISM summer Iconography studio, conducted and recorded for the much-anticipated documentary on chant by Margot Fassler. He curated, produced and performed the music for the Augmented Realities Series at the Byzantine Galleries of Boston’s MFA, conducted and curated the soloists and Schola Cantorum for UCLA’s well-known Byzantine Soundscapes project. Prior to retreating in the Bay Area, he served as Artistic Director & Senior Advisor for Culture of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America & Principal Cantor at the National Archdiocesan Cathedral. He is a member of ASCAP Academy and has written and produced music for the award-winning seasons of the series Mediterranean Secrets: The Life of Loi on PBS.  For Livanis Press, in 2011 he restored, edited and translated Dimitri Mitropoulos’ Autograph Notes on the History of Music Morphology published with Nicholas Zervas, BSO President Laureate and Harvard University Professor.

Click here to register

The Global Approaches to Sacred Space lectures are generously funded by the SGS Global Research Workshop series with further support from the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, CESTA, CMEMS, CREEES, the Departments of Art & Art History, Classics, French & Italian, History, and Religious Studies.

Co-organized by Prof. Bissera V. Pentcheva and Andrei Dumitrescu.

Image: Late Byzantine Chanters Performing Chironomia, fresco, Princely Church of St. Nicholas, Curtea de Argeș, Romania, ca. 1360-1370 (C) Andrei Dumitrescu.