Boston Byzantine Music Festival | February 24-25, 2014

BUY TICKETS NOW Monday, February 24, 7:00 p.m. Maliotis Cultural Center, Hellenic College Holy Cross CHANT FROM THE CHRISTIAN EAST featuring the Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Byzantine Choir The evening will begin with a lecture by Dr. Emmanouil Giannopoulos on the history of Byzantine music. Performances by the Holy Cross St. Romanos the Melodist Byzantine Choir will accompany and illustrate the talk. Following the lecture, the acclaimed Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Byzantine Choir, led by Demetrios Kehagias, will perform a selection of Lenten hymns of the Orthodox Church expressing the spirit of contrition and the power of forgiveness. Many of the musical settings are by great composers who served the Ecumenical Patriarchate during the past 300 years, including Iakovos Protopsaltis (d. 1800) and Thrasyvoulos Stanitsas (d. 1987). Highlights of the evening will include the mournful Turn not away Your face that marks the beginning of Lent and an ornate setting of an excerpt from the Akathist Hymn. ___________________________________________________________________ Tuesday, February 25, 7:00 p.m. Maliotis Cultural Center, Hellenic College Holy Cross SOUNDS OF CONSTANTINOPLE featuring En Chordais The internationally lauded En Chordais, based in Thessaloniki, will perform a wide variety of vocal and instrumental pieces by composers of various ethnic origins spanning half a millennium, all of which are strongly connected to the rich musical heritage of the Byzantine Empire. Highlights of the evening will include one of the earliest notated Greek folk songs (16th c.), a lesser known instrumental masterpiece by the greatest post-Byzantine ecclesiastical composer, Petros the Peloponnesian (d. 1778), and songs from the late 19th- and early 20th-cent ury pre-rembetiko scene in Constantinople. ___________________________________________________________________ Tuesday, February 25, 3:00 p.m. (Free public lecture) Archbishop Iakovos Library Reading Room, Hellenic College Holy Cross THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE BYZANTINE MUSICAL HERITAGE WITH EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN MUSICAL TRADITIONS a lecture by Dr. Kyriakos Kalaitzidis, En Chordais Artistic Director Dr. Kyriakos Kalaitzidis will explore the common classical musical heritage of the eastern Mediterranean and neighboring lands. The centuries long cross-cultural exchange in the region has resulted in musical traditions linked by their rhythm forms, musical instruments, melodic themes, and the modal framework that constitutes the foundation of Oriental music and which is known by various names, including maqam, mugam, dastgah, and, in Byzantine music, echos. Dr. Kalaitzidis will discuss these traditions and his research into the post-Byzantine musical manuscripts that constitute one of the most important sources for the secular music of the Middle East. Tickets are now available online at www.maryjahariscenter.org. Phone sales at Brown Paper Tickets: 1-800-838-3006. Press 1 and mention the Boston Byzantine Music Festival. The Maliotis Cultural Center and the Archbishop Iakovos Library Reading Room are located on the Hellenic College Holy Cross campus at 50 Goddard Avenue in Brookline, MA. Photo credits: Greek Orthodox Byzantine Choir image ? Dimitrios Panagos - En Chordais image ? Eleni Papadopoulou HELLENIC COLLEGE HOLY CROSS 50 Goddard Avenue, Brookline, MA 02445 617.731.3500 | hchc.edu