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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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Planet Hugill Reviews Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week
Robert Hugill has a new review for our “Remarkable re-discovery” of Maximilian Steinberg’s Passion Week: “Musically it is very much in the same genre as Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil (Vespers), the chant in Steinberg’s work has similar recognisable outlines. Steinberg’s harmony is more classical…and the chants stand out more in Steinberg. …Quite romantic in texture,
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Good Friday In Jerusalem in Early Music Review
“Alexander Lingas, in collaboration with Ioannis Arvanitis, is fortunate in being able to reify his archival researches into Medieval Byzantine chant by means of Cappella Romana’s fine musical skills and their recording team. … we can rejoice that these rites are preserved from a Holy Land now surrounded by architectural, human and cultural destruction.” —Diana
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Ivan Moody: From Darkness to Light
The From Darkness to Light programme is a journey in more than one sense. Firstly, it takes us from spiritual darkness (the condition which is cured, according to Orthodox Christian tradition, by metanoia, a change of heart) to light, the radiance of the Resurrection of Christ, by which mankind is made new. Secondly, it takes
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AllMusic Features Steinberg: Passion Week
AllMusic critic James Manheim has a new review for our Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week recording: “The whole story is told in the excellent notes here, but the music itself is the main attraction. The nearest comparison would be Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil, but it is far from a knock-off. Steinberg makes less use of the characteristic
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Passion Week a MusicWeb Recording of the Month
MusicWeb International critic John Quinn names our Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week a RECORDING OF THE MONTH! “Passion Week is one of the finest and most moving Orthodox settings that I’ve encountered and I’ve been excited by getting to know it. It’s particularly pleasing that this music should receive its first recording from such a fine
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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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Audiophile Audition Gives Passion Week Five Stars
Audiophile Audition gives Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week a Five-Star review! “[Maximilian Steinberg’s] music is pretty much sunk in obscurity…Until now, that is. … His Op. 13 Passion Week is his seminal work in the genre, actually more a collection of pieces selected from various Holy Week services that could be used outside of the opus
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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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Good Friday In Jerusalem Concert Program
Our concert features excerpts from the “Service of the Holy Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ” as it would have been celebrated in Jerusalem during the tenth century. The ancestor of the service celebrated in the modern Byzantine rite on Holy Thursday evening, this is a stational version of the office of early morning prayer
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Meet Stelios Kontakiotis
Stelios Kontakiotis, principal soloist Stelios Kontakiotis is protopsaltis (first chanter) of the Holy Temple of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary on the sacred island of Tinos, Greece, one of the most prominent pilgrimage sites in Greece. Mr. Kontakiotis was born in Athens and grew up on the island of Amorgos (Cyclades-Greece). He began his
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