neophokaeus
Μέλος
Dear Father Ephraim,
I have heard of you and your laborious work on transposing byzantine chant from greek to english (american). The same thing we did in french in the 70's in France before the uniats of Cantauque now converted to Orthodoxy, did.
I was a former student at HC/HC in Boston, and I heard many times hymnology in english in our chapel by f. Seraphim Dedes and f. Charles Terzopoulos. They were pioneers in the matter. My concern is that how chanting byzantine music with an american throat... The long tradition of byzantine chant in greek cannot be reached by any other language and I think you understand well what I mean. I would propose you to look back to old english or irish music and also american song tradition where you could take a lot of examples in order to be in harmony with your language and its tradition. Look the Slaves(Russian, Serbians, Bulgarians) or the Romanians. It's too simple and rather ridiculous to imitate the greek singers in chanting liturgical english words. I believe that you should work on the local chanting tradition of your country and byzantine chant will help you to give birth to american byzantine chant. Remember that an american throat or a french one is not a greek throat, and we ought to find and adapt our chanting to our native language in our beloved country for the love and the glory of Christ and our local Orthodox Church.
With love in Christ, f. Amphilochios Pikias, Rhodes, Greece.
I have heard of you and your laborious work on transposing byzantine chant from greek to english (american). The same thing we did in french in the 70's in France before the uniats of Cantauque now converted to Orthodoxy, did.
I was a former student at HC/HC in Boston, and I heard many times hymnology in english in our chapel by f. Seraphim Dedes and f. Charles Terzopoulos. They were pioneers in the matter. My concern is that how chanting byzantine music with an american throat... The long tradition of byzantine chant in greek cannot be reached by any other language and I think you understand well what I mean. I would propose you to look back to old english or irish music and also american song tradition where you could take a lot of examples in order to be in harmony with your language and its tradition. Look the Slaves(Russian, Serbians, Bulgarians) or the Romanians. It's too simple and rather ridiculous to imitate the greek singers in chanting liturgical english words. I believe that you should work on the local chanting tradition of your country and byzantine chant will help you to give birth to american byzantine chant. Remember that an american throat or a french one is not a greek throat, and we ought to find and adapt our chanting to our native language in our beloved country for the love and the glory of Christ and our local Orthodox Church.
With love in Christ, f. Amphilochios Pikias, Rhodes, Greece.