Συμμετοχή στο Διεθνές Μουσικολογικό Συμπόσιο “The Church as a Singing Family in the Christian Tradition”_Ιάσιο, 28 Μαΐου 2026
Παρουσίασα την ανακοίνωση “Singing Church Music in the Ecumenical Christian Family: Reflections and Perspectives”
ABSTRACT
In this paper, I will highlight the potential of Byzantine Music as an “ecumenical language”. The starting point of my paper is a personal experience: years ago, during a visit to Bucharest, I unexpectedly found myself in an extremely familiar environment, where there was an abundance of enthusiasm for music (expressed in its Romanian-language version). There, although friendly relations with local colleagues developed easily, the inability to linguistically communicate was only overcome when we sang together (according to the so-called Parallage technique) a musical composition, using precisely this evergreen dynamic of Byzantine Music as an “ecumenical language”. This approach proved to be the only way to articulate a common (melodious, clear, powerful, and mutually understandable) voice of communication, that is, to express externally (through music) the emotional feelings that overwhelmed us internally. On a reflective basis of similar personal experiences of multilingual chanting of Byzantine Music in various “musical families” around the world, I will subsequently attempt to present thoughts on the perspectives of such an ecumenical performative dimension of Orthodox Church Music.
