Cappella Romana at the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great

Cappella Romana Brings Medieval Byzantine Chant to London

Cappella Romana, the world’s leading early music vocal ensemble for the broad exploration of music of the Eastern Orthodox traditions, 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’. Its founder and artistic director Dr Alexander Lingas (City University London) will lead an international ensemble of Byzantine cantors from Greece, the UK, and the US, featuring especially Mr Stelios Kontakiotis, principal cantor (protopsaltis) of the Shrine to the Mother of God on Tinos.

Evening Concert at St Bartholomew-the-Great

Desert and City: Medieval Byzantine Chant from the Holy Land

Wednesday 15 May 2013, 8:00 pm
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great, Cloth Fair, EC1
Tickets £25 £18; Concessions 50% off (limited availability)
TicketSource T: 029 2071 3200

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. 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.