Emmanouil Giannopoulos at the First Boston Byzantine Music Festival
Dr. Emmanouil Giannopoulos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Higher Ecclesiastical Academy of Ioannina) delivered his lecture “Orthodox Liturgical Music’s Breeze Blows Over the Aegean” on the opening night of the first Boston Byzantine Music Festival, February 24–25, 2014. His lecture looked at the important role the churches and monasteries of the Aegean Islands played in the preservation of Byzantine music. Dr. Giannopoulos was accompanied by the Holy Cross St. Romanos the Melodist Byzantine Choir, who performed pieces illustrating elements of his presentation. In one of the highlights of the evening, the choir sang “As the disciples were hastening to the mountain” (first mode), First Eothinon Doxastikon for Sunday Orthros, composed by Theodosios of Chios, which Dr. Giannopoulos transcribed into modern notation for the evening so that the audience could hear a piece of music that had gone unheard for centuries.