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It’s About Time

The 2025–26 Season

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.

You can join Cappella Romana on its musical journey through 2025–2026 by purchasing your subscriptions now (and Single Tickets on August 15).

Looking forward to welcoming you,

Alexander Lingas

About Cappella Romana

Cappella Romana is a professional vocal ensemble that performs early and contemporary sacred classical music in the Christian traditions of East and West. The ensemble is known especially for its presentations and recordings of medieval Byzantine chant (the Eastern sibling of Gregorian chant), Greek and Russian Orthodox choral works, and other sacred music that expresses the historic traditions of a unified Christian inheritance.

Cappella Romana presents sacred choral music that engages audiences with an experience of music from medieval times as well as by contemporary composers.

A presentation by Cappella Romana is an experience unlike any other classical choral music concert. Each of its events reveal something transcendent. In the space of our performances and our recordings, we bring to the public the music of the common Christian inheritance.

A Cappella Romana performance takes you on a journey of discovery. Some programs feature ancient music never before heard by modern audiences; on other occasions new or rediscovered works are brought to audiences by leading contemporary composers. Our programs create a dynamic experience of immersion in sound and space, tradition and history, innovation and light.

Founded in 1991, Cappella Romana’s name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe, as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople (“New Rome”) and its Slavic commonwealth.

Flexible in size according to the demands of the repertory, Cappella Romana has a special commitment to mastering the Slavic and Byzantine musical repertories in their original languages, thereby making accessible to the general public two great musical traditions that are little known in the West.

In the field of contemporary music, Cappella Romana has taken a leading role in bringing to audiences the vocal works of such European contemporary composers as Michael Adamis, Ivan Moody, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener, as well as promoting the work of North Americans such as Fr. Sergei Glagolev, Christos Hatzis, Peter Michaelides, and Tikey Zes.

The vocal ensemble presents annual concert series in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, in addition to touring nationally and internationally. Critics have consistently praised these for their unusual and innovative programming, including numerous world and American premieres. The group regularly collaborates with such artists as conductor Paul Hillier, chant specialist Ioannis Arvanitis, and composer Ivan Moody.