Out of the Ashes of Smyrna

From medieval seeds planted long ago, exuberant traditions of Byzantine chanting in Asia Minor continued to flower during Ottoman rule. With the Asia Minor Disaster—an ethnic cleansing that included the 1922 burning of Smyrna (İzmir)—Greek-speaking refugees fled to Greece and elsewhere around the world. With them they brought their own traditions of Byzantine chanting. Catch a musical glimpse of a city and culture that exists today only in the memory of its diaspora, infused with irrepressible joy and transcendent beauty.