As Founder and Musical Director of the vocal ensemble Cappella Romana, it brings me great joy to introduce It’s About Time, our 2025–2026 season of concerts in the Pacific Northwest. Traversing time and space, we perform music ranging in mood from quiet contemplation to joyful ecstasy, capped off by a return visit from our amazing friends The Tallis Scholars.
Our own series of five concerts begins and ends with choral masterpieces of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In October Guest Director David Hattner and the Portland Youth Philharmonic Camerata join our marvelous professional singers for monumental masses by Anton Bruckner and Igor Stravinsky, while in March I conduct them in stirring Slavic Passiontide hymns by Alexander Gretchaninov and Maximilian Steinberg. More intimate groups of voices and instruments perform in between, with exquisite chamber compositions by Arvo Pärt, Ivan Moody, and Sir John Tavener in February. I am especially looking forward to premiering two stunning new works by contemporary Greek composers in November: the World Premiere of the original choral version of Mystical Versicles, Christos Hatzis’s setting of a poem by Nobel-laureate Odysseas Elytis, and the North American Premiere of The Last Anthem by rising star Dimitris Skyllas. Co-commissioned by the Istanbul Festival and Cappella Romana, the latter is a poignant meditation on human displacement commemorating the centenary of the forced exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. At the center of it all is Christmas with Cappella, our annual offering of music for the holiday season from Orthodox traditions across the centuries.
Looking forward to welcoming you,
Alexander Lingas
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