Time is precious these days, so there won’t be a post today. Instead, I’d like to share an article about the late Sir John Tavener. He was a composer who gained the attention of the Beatles but later turned away from avant-garde music to embrace Orthodox hymnody, focusing on creating Continue Reading
Eastern Orthodoxy
Happy Easter
In honor of the Paschal Feast of the Resurrection, we will be offline today. May you and yours enjoy your Easter!
For God is with us (Appalachian Orthodox chant)
Merry Christmas to my friends on the Julian Calendar! This version of “For God Is With Us,” is done in an Appalachian choir style. I can’t think of anything more American or more Orthodox that this organic piece of work.
Trio Mandili – Psalm 50
There will be no reviews either today or tomorrow as Orthodox Christians observe Christmas Eve and the Nativity on what was always the Ecumenical Church Calendar until the devising of the modern Gregorian Calendar, so for those who hold to the Councils, today is December 24. We wish you a Continue Reading
St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church: Chanters and Choir – Pascha: The Feast of Feasts
We celebrate Eastern Orthodox Holy Week and today is Good Friday according to the Julian Calendar. May your Paschal season end peacefully. Thanks to St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee for the wonderful and timely hymns.
DÜNYA – A Sacred Music Celebration: Greek Orthodoxy and Turkish Sufism
For my friends in the West, today is Good Friday, and I wish you a wonderful, blessed and prosperous Paschal celebration. I send you a gift in the form of the ensemble DÜNYA offering Christian and Islamic chants in celebration of Holy Weekend and Easter.
Various Artists – Fly, Fly, You Hardened Arrow: Round Dance Songs of “Polish” Old Believers from Altai
The now-legendary Antonovka Records have done astounding work documenting music from Russia’s myriad of ethnic communities. This one is from the so-called “Polish” Old Believers in the Altai region. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “The ancestors of the Altai “Polish” Old Believers were peasants of the Vetka-Starodub territory of the Continue Reading
Digre – The Way of a Pilgrim
Minimal synths, plinking and plonking keyboard, a gothic air, a mention of the Orthodox work The Way Of The Pilgrim, and dedicated to the memory of St. Olav the Holy Martyr-King – that was enough to perk my interest in the band Digre. The notes on their Bandcamp site makes Continue Reading
Children’s & Youth Choir “Sophia” – Christ Has Risen
No reviews today, as we celebrate the victory of Christ over death itself. May you, fellow Orthodox and those who celebrate on the Julian Calendar, enjoy Easter! Arabic: El Messieh kahm! Chinese: Helisituosi fuhuole! Czech: Vstal z mrtvých Kristus! Georgian: Kriste aghsdga! Greek: Christos anesti! Latin: Christus resurrexit! Romanian: Hristos Continue Reading
Lonsai Maïkov & New Orthodox Line – Sobornost
Breton musician Thierry Jolif (who records as Lonsai Maïkov here) is a fellow Orthodox who also happens to make boomingly dark experimental drone music. It’s quite something to hear both worlds collapse into each other so violently, but if I could trust anyone to pull of such a feat, it Continue Reading