Foundation News Renowned Cappella Romana Ensemble Presents Concert for Religious Freedom
On Thursday, October 19, 2023, the Byzantine Chant Ensemble that made headlines around the world chanting at the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III presented a Concert for Religious Freedom. This was an exclusive performance for FOUNDERS in good standing and new FOUNDERS of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Foundation. The Concert was held at the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. An elegant reception followed at Skinos, on Washington Street in New York City.
Cappella Romana chanted Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia, which is the first vocal album in the world to be recorded entirely in live virtual acoustics. It brings together art history, music history, performance, and technology to re-create medieval sacred sound in the cathedral of Hagia Sophia as an aural virtual reality. By means of modern technology, it presents how chanting actually sounded in Hagia Sophia.
Cappella Romana performed selections from the Offices of Vespers and Matins, as well as from the Divine Liturgy, for the Exaltation and Veneration of the Holy Cross, as they sounded at Hagia Sophia, The Great Church of Christ.
Before the concert, Anthony J. Limberakis, MD, Archon Megas Aktouarios and Chair of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Foundation, welcomed the attendees. Archons Joseph J. Kokolakis, Esq., Markos K. Lagos and Michael P. Neamonitakis, the Chairs of the New Members Committee, offered greetings and introductions.
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.
Dr. Alexander Lingas, Archon Mousikodidaskalos, is the musical director and founder of Cappella Romana. Archon Lingas was director of the Byzantine Chant Ensemble for the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III. He is Professor of Music and Associate Director of the Institute of Sacred Arts at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, as well as a Research Fellow of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (Cambridge, UK).
The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Foundation, a watershed initiative of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is dedicated to achieving economic independence for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, so that it may fulfill its apostolic mission in perpetuity.
FOUNDERS of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Foundation have committed to ensuring the financial foundation of the Holy Mother Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, by pledging $100,000 over 10 years. For further information about the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Foundation, see bartholomew.foundation.
