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Stirring. Meditative. Powerful.
Let yourself be swept away by the power of ancient chant for Epiphany New Year’s Weekend Epiphany: Medieval Byzantine & Old Roman Chant Cappella Romana’s specialist ensemble of Byzantine cantors perform Epiphany: a program of Medieval hymns and psalms for the feast of Epiphany, including examples sung directly from 11th-century manuscripts. The program was the…
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Steinberg: Passion Week a Gramophone Recording of the Year
Gramophone Magazine released their 2015 Recordings of the Year issue and included our Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week recording! “This important and exciting release from the Portland, Oregon-based 26-strong chamber choir is a notable successor to their ‘Good Friday in Jerusalem’ disc (5/15). … This recording closely followed what is believed to have been the premiere…
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Byzantine Music in Cyprus
Manuscripts of Byzantine chant copied through the middle of the fifteenth century show that Cyprus remained closely tied to the musical mainstream of Byzantium. The two hymns (stichera) from the Greek office for St Hilarion included on the present recording are excerpts from a longer sequence of hymns interpolated on the eve of his feast…
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Cyprus — The Ars nova and its Byzantine Counterpart
Latin and Greek sacred music of the Middle Ages shared both roots in the Christian psalmody of Roman Late Antiquity and a common inheritance of Ancient Greek musical theory. Despite centuries of troubled relations between Byzantine Christianity and the Church of Rome that went from bad to worse with the Crusader sack and occupation of…
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Medieval Cyprus Between East and West
Located at a strategic point in the Eastern Mediterranean close to the coasts of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the Middle East, the island of Cyprus has been a site of commercial and cultural interchange since the dawn of civilization. Christianity came to the island with the apostles Paul and Barnabas, the latter of whom…
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Patrick Comerford Previews Cappella Romana’s All-Night Vigil Centennial Performance And More
After attending Dr. Alexander Lingas’ Kilkenny Arts Festival lecture “The Lost Music of Byzantium” last Saturday, blogger Patrick Comerford previews Cappella Romana’s upcoming Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil concert series: “This year marks the centenary of the All-Night Vigil, the a cappella choral composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff, his Op. 37. … To mark this centenary, Cappella Romana…
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New MusicWeb Review for Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week
After John Quinn named Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week an April “Recording of the Month”, another MusicWeb International critic has been listening to our world premiere recording: “It is hard to imagine the turmoil surrounding conflict and persecution between the Communist state and the Church in this period, and even more so on hearing this tender…
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Cappella Romana To Perform Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Choir!
Guest Director Ivan Moody adds Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Choir to the program From Darkness to Light! “Rachmaninoff’s wonderful choir concerto is the perfect work to anchor this program. His music was both a culmination of a great tradition and a starting point for so much of what followed in Russia. In many ways it is,…
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ClassicalNet: Passion Week is An Ethereal Experience
ClassicalNet‘s Brian Wigman says Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week is an example of why he’s “been a fan of Cappella Romana for a few years now”: “I’ve been a fan of Cappella Romana for a few years now, and they have thoroughly enriched our understanding of Orthodox choral music from all over the world. Director Alexander…
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch Passion Week Review
Sarah Bryan Miller says Passion Week helps to “fill the gap” in music for Holy Week in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “In ‘Passion Week,’ which receives its world premiere recording here, that style is lushly traditional in the Russian Orthodox style. It’s paired with Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Chants for Holy Week.’ It’s all beautifully sung by Cappella…
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Steinberg Passion Week a “Landmark Recording”
The Orthodox Arts Journal‘s Benedict Sheehan gives Cappella Romana’s upcoming Maximilian Steinberg Passion Week an absolute rave: “Every so often a record comes along that changes the landscape of choral music.…The work itself is the sort of thing musicologists dream about: a treasure of inestimable musical value, hidden away in some attic or dusty library…


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