The Archdiocesan Byzantine Choir of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, directed by Dr. Demetrios Kehagias, returns for an encore performance at the Second Boston Byzantine Music Festival. Petros the Peloponnesian: Portrait of a Musical Genius celebrates the career of one the greatest post-Byzantine ecclesiastical composers. Petros the Peloponnesian (d. 1778), cantor in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, prolific composer, and teacher of Byzantine music, composed hymns and chants for the Office and Liturgies of the Greek Orthodox Church and produced interpretations of older chant melodies. His works are preserved in many musical anthologies from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Petros the Peloponnesian: Portrait of a Musical Genius will present the best-known masterpieces of Petros alongside works by composers whose style bears his unmistakable influence.
Watch the Archdiocesan Byzantine Choir performing in the historic Hagia Eirene in Istanbul
Core DÜNYA ensemble member and director of A Fasıl for a Phanariot Beyzade, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol has created a special program for the Boston Byzantine Music Festival. Dr. Sanlıkol’s selections recreate a recital that would have been enjoyed by a Phanariot Beyzade (a Greek-Ottoman prince) in nineteenth-century Istanbul. DÜNYA ensemble will perform Phanariot songs and Ottoman classical music notated by master nineteenth-century Greek Orthodox cantors. A Fasıl for a Phanariot Beyzade reveals the cross-fertilization between the Ottoman court, the Phanariot (Greek [or Greek-identified] elite who held an influential political and social position in the Ottoman Empire from the seventeenth century until the Greek War of Independence in 1821), and the great composers of the Orthodox Church, many of whom were also accomplished instrumentalists in the Ottoman classical tradition.
The Holy Cross St. Romanos the Melodist Byzantine Choir, led by Dr. Grammenos Karanos, Artistic Director of the Boston Byzantine Music Festival, will join the DÜNYA ensemble in a number of selections, including a collective gazel improvisation and a love song by Gregorios Protopsaltis (d. 1821).