Panel discussion: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010, 7 p.m.
Whitman College Hall of Music, room 202

Three members of Cappella Romana will hold a panel discussion on the origins of Byzantine music and how church liturgy functioned as the embodiment of the Heavenly realm. The three members of the panel will be:

• Alexander Khalil (Ph.D., UC San Diego) is an ethnomusicologist, performer, and composer. His doctoral dissertation explores aural aspects of the traditional practices of the last remaining chanters of the church of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul, Turkey.
• Spyridon Antonopoulos (BA, Brown; PhD Candidate, City University London) is a performer‐scholar whose dissertation research focuses on Byzantine music in Imperial court rituals of the 15th century, in particular the music of Chrysaphes.
• John Michael Boyer (BA, UC Berkeley) is conductor for the concert and Protopsaltis of The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco. He is also a graduate student at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston.

Concert: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010, 8 p.m.
Chism Recital Hall, Whitman College Hall of Music

Byzantine Chant in the Received Tradition • For the feasts of the Archangels (November 8), the Annunciation (March 25) and Pascha (Easter) • Selections from the Divine Liturgy

The Orthodox East has always viewed its earthly music-making as a living icon of angelic praise, a physical form of mystical participation in the ceaseless song of Heaven’s “bodiless powers.” John Michael Boyer will lead the men of Cappella Romana in a program of traditional Byzantine music expressing in song the angels’ mediation between the earthly and the divine, including chants in Greek for the feasts of the Archangels, the Annunciation, and Pascha (Easter) and from the Divine Liturgy.

The ensemble will also perform selections in English from Cappella Romana’s critically acclaimed recording, “The Divine Liturgy in English in Byzantine Chant.”

Lecture‐demonstration: Friday, Nov. 5, 2010 12–1 p.m.
Chism Recital Hall, Whitman College Hall of Music

Mark Powell (MA, University of Washington, Musicology), executive director of Cappella Romana, has proposed a lecture‐demonstration that would engage a number of multicultural topics of interest to the college community at large. Several members of the ensemble are ethnomusicologists, and their approach to performing this repertoire is founded on an exemplary synthesis of anthropological and historical research. This Cross‐Departmental Project: Cappella Romana Departments of Music and History approach is particularly apt for presenting music of the Byzantine rite, since the repertoire is a legacy of ancient and medieval practices that have been preserved in a living tradition, as part of the liturgical practice of the Eastern Church.

These events are free and open to the public.

About Cappella Romana: www.cappellaromana.org