9.30 Study day

18.30 Concert by the Hagiopolites Choir from Athens conducted by Ioannis Arvanitis

free entrance

Last year, when the “Voice and Sound of Prayer” was announced, the idea was to promote an annual study day on a specific theme connected to the relationship between voice and prayer (with reference to an individual liturgical tradition, the musical culture of a given geographical area and a specific European or non-European ritual form).
Promoted by the Intercultural Institute for Comparative Music Studies and coordinated by the ethnomusicologist Girolamo Garofalo from the University of Palermo, the Study day is intended to include not only scholarly papers by leading experts but also a concert of the highest standard to illustrate some of the repertories being discussed.

Held in December 2010, the first edition, devoted to the theme of the Armenian liturgical chant, was an emblematic way of highlighting Venice’s historical relations with the Christian East. Now a similar logic has led to the choice of theme for the second edition, dedicated to Oral and Written Traditions in the Byzantine Chant in Italy.

Since its foundation, Venice was closely linked to the Byzantine Empire, while Byzantine models have influenced the development of the cultural and artistic identity of the lagoon city both before and after the waning of Byzantium as an imperial capital. The most obvious example of Byzantine elements can be found in the Basilica of St Mark’s, one
of the great landmarks of Venice.

The Study day will develop in two directions by concentrating on both written and oral music. On one hand, there will be a focus on the written musical sources – Byzantine, Italian and Greek manuscripts – in Italian libraries and archives (e.g. the Vatican Library, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the Biblioteca Marciana, the Messina University
Library and the Library of the Greek Abbey of Grottaferrata). The subsequent overview will be updated in the light of recent studies and at the same time specific issues concerning some particularly interesting manuscripts will be explored. On the other hand, by crossing over the musicological approach and the ethnomusicologist view,
there will be a focus on some themes that bring together the Byzantine chant with the expressive modes and dynamics of transmission typical of oral traditions. In this sense one very stimulating prospective enquiry concerns the “oral elements” that surface in the written sources.
Moreover, there will be a special emphasis on the liturgical musical practice of two absolutely unusual, specifically “Italian” traditions pursued in the Greek Abbey at Grottaferrata (founded by St Nilus of Rossano in 1004) and the Greek Catholic diocese of the Arbëresh (Albanians) in Sicily. The diocese consists of five towns, the most
important being Piana degli Albanesi. Its still oral liturgical musical tradition goes back over 500 years ago to when, after Constantinople fell into Ottoman hands, there was an enormous exodus of Greek and Albanian people from Albania and Morea (Peloponnesus) to Sicily and other southern Italian regions.

At the end of the Study Day a concert will be given by the Hagiopolites Choir from Athens, conducted by Ioannis Arvanitis, an authoritative performer and scholar of international renown. The programme has a number of very original artistic and documentary aspects. This almost unique event will feature music from repertories based on codices preserved in Italian libraries.