Leadership: Staff and Board

The leadership staff and board of Cappella Romana is comprised of highly talented musicians, artists, professionals, and community members. Get to know us, listen to our recordings, join us at a concert.

Alexander Lingas

Alexander Lingas, Music Director and Founder

Alexander Lingas is Music Director of Cappella Romana, which he founded in 1991 to explore through scholarship and performance the sacred musical inheritance of Old Rome and the West, and New Rome-Constantinople and the East. Cappella Romana is the longest-running professional vocal ensemble in the region.

In fall 2024 Dr. Lingas was based at UCLA as Visiting Professor in the Department of Music and Artist in Residence of Gefyra, a collaboration of the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, where he directed a concert and forthcoming Cappella Romana recording of medieval Byzantine chant honoring the patron of Thessaloniki, St. Demetrios, performed with choral students from UCLA.

In 2023 he formed and directed the Byzantine Chant Ensemble for the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla. He has been honored twice by the Romanian Orthodox Church, receiving the Order of the Imperial Saints Constantine and Helen of the Patriarchate of Romania in 2025 and the Moldavian Cross of the Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina in 2019. He was elected to a four-year term as Chair of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music in June 2025.

In 2018 His All Holiness, Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch bestowed on him the title of Archon Mousikodidáskalos (lit. Leading Skilled Teacher of Music).

Dr. Lingas is Professor of Music at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (Cambridge, UK), and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Performing Arts at City St. George’s, University of London. Having hosted him as the Spring 2023 Artist in Residence, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York subsequently appointed him Professor of Music and Associate Director of its Institute of Sacred Arts.

He completed his doctorate on Sunday matins in the rite of Hagia Sophia at the University of British Columbia and then, with the support of a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship, moved to Oxfordshire to study theology with Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. From 1997 to 2021 he was a Fellow of the University of Oxford’s European Humanities Research Centre. His present research embraces not only historical study but also ethnography and performance. His awards include Fulbright and Onassis grants for musical studies in Greece with cantor Lycourgos Angelopoulos, the British Academy’s Thank-Offering to Britain Fellowship, research leave supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and the St. Romanos the Melodist medallion of the National Forum for Greek Orthodox Church Musicians (USA).

Mark Powell

Mark Powell, Executive Director

Mark Powell has served Cappella Romana in multiple capacities, as a singer since 1995, as president of its board of directors from 1999-2002, and since 2002 as its executive director. In 2016 he was made full-time executive director.

After completing his undergraduate degree, he lived in Europe, where he was the general administrator of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, and subsequently the managing editor of the International Choral Bulletin and projects manager for the International Federation for Choral Music in Namur, Belgium.

Following his sojourn in Europe, for nine years he served as a music tour manager with ACFEA Tour Consultants, a concert tours company for performing arts groups from all over the world. He also served as director of marketing at Early Music America and Associate Editor of its publication, Early Music America Magazine. From 2006 to 2016 he served as director of development and marketing for Portland Baroque Orchestra.

He is a trained singer, having earned his singing degree from Seattle Pacific University and a masters degree in musicology at the University of Washington, and has held posts as both cantor and choir director in several Orthodox parishes. He also was a regular member of Seattle’s Tudor Choir from 1993 to 2004. While in Europe he toured and performed with a number of professional choirs, including Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Belgium; Kammerchor Stuttgart, Germany; Wakefield Cathedral Choir, England; and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.

John Michael Boyer

John Michael Boyer, Associate Music Director

John Michael Boyer (baritone, associate music director) has been a professional singer, conductor, and Byzantine cantor since 1997. He studied Byzantine Music with Alexander Lingas, Lycourgos Angelopoulos (+2014), and Ioannis Arvanitis. Having sung with Cappella Romana since 1999, he was made associate music director in 2017. John is founder and artistic director of PRÓTO, a collaborative duet with Lebanese-American cantor the Rev. John Rassem El Massih; their seminal recording, Sun of Justice, was released in December, 2017. John is an active composer and has produced new music for several recordings, including The Divine Liturgy in English in Byzantine Chant (Cappella Romana), All Creation Trembled (Holy Cross), Sun of Justice (PRÓTO); as well as Cappella Romana’s forthcoming recording of the Orthodox Funeral Office, music originally composed for the funeral of Sir John Tavener in 2013. He collaborated on the new composition Heaven & Earth: A Song of Creation, for the St. John of Damascus Society, and conducted both its premiere in 2018 and its subsequent recording with Cappella Romana (2022). John’s book, Byzantine Chant: the Received Tradition – A Lesson Book is was published in February 2023, with his Resurrectionary, an English Anastasimatárion using the translations of the late Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash) (+2016) also slated for 2023. John is founder and director of the Saint John Koukouzelis Institute of Liturgical Arts (koukouzelis. net), which offers instruction in Byzantine Music and Liturgics. He is Protopsaltis (chief cantor) of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis (Diocese) of San Francisco, currently on loan as full-time Cantor and Director of Music at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in New Orleans. In 2018, John married renowned Greek philologist and modern historian, Evangelia Boubougiatzi. They have twin girls and split their time between the United States and Pyrgetos of Larisa, Greece.

Richard Barrett

Richard Barrett, Director of Publications

Richard Barrett was most recently Executive Director of AGES Initiatives. He is the Artistic Director and co-founder of the The Saint John of Damascus Society, and Director of Music at Holy Dormition Greek Orthodox Church in Somerville, Mass. He studied Byzantine chant with Dr. Ioannis Arvanitis, Fr. Romanos Karanos, and John Michael Boyer.

He sings regularly with ensembles such as Cappella Romana, The Saint Tikhon Choir, Psaltikon, the Archdiocesan Byzantine Choir of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. Orthodox churches and sacred music conferences regularly invite him as a clinician, speaker, and singer. The National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians recently appointed him co-chair of the Liturgical Music Education Committee, and since 2016 he has served as Chant Liaison to the Boston Federation of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians.

He holds an M.A. in Ancient History and a B. Mus. in Vocal Performance, both from Indiana University, and a Performer’s Certificate in Byzantine Music from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Publications include peer-reviewed articles in The Journal of Early Christian Studies and Studia Patristica, as well as essays on Orthodox musical topics in print and online venues. He lives in Boston with his wife Megan and their children Theodore and Katherine.

David Krueger

David Krueger, Operations Manager

David Krueger is the Singer and Office Manager of Cappella Romana, and is grateful to have been performing, touring, and recording with Cappella Romana since 1997, as a bass II and isokrat. His experience includes theater, jazz, folk, world, and sacred music, and he has worked with a number of fine ensembles throughout the Northwest. He loves traveling and being a dad.

Becky Hawkins

Becky Hawkins, Office Coordinator and Patron Services

Becky Hawkins is excited to be part of the Cappella Romana team. Becky comes to Cappella Romana from Northwest Children’s Theater, where she managed the box office for 7 years. She graduated from IU Bloomington with a degree in woodwind performance (oboe, saxophone, clarinet). While working as a cruise ship musician, Becky began making watercolor comics about her travels. She is now an award winning cartoonist. She’s made Portland her home since 2012 and spends her free time advocating for safe streets for walking and bicycling.