Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist

Some additional details on the Orthodox Music Symposium being held on the Indiana University campus:

• The event will be titled, “The Musical Heritage of the Orthodox Church: Music, Liturgy, and Beauty in Orthodox Christianity”.
• It will be in Sweeney Hall (Simon Center 015) at the IU Jacobs School of Music.
• A tentative schedule is as follows:
  • 8am: Hall opens
  • 8:00-8:30: Continental breakfast (incentive to come early!)
  • 8:30-8:50: Introductory remarks
  • 9:00-9:50: Lecture recital #1 (we haven’t yet determined the speaker order)
  • 10:00-10:50: Lecture recital #2
  • 11:00-11:30: Break
  • 11:30-12:20: Lecture recital #3
  • 12:30-1:20: Lecture recital #4
  • 1:30-2:30: Panel discussion and Q&A

I also pleased to announce some additional sponsorships:

• The Department of Sacred Music of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Many thanks to the chairman of the Department, Christopher Holwey, for their generous support.
• The Center for Middle East Studies at Indiana University — an academic unit so new they don’t have a website yet! Dr. Feisal Istrabadi, the director of CMES, has been very enthusiastic about this project, and I am grateful for his excitement.
• The Center for West European Studies at Indiana University. WEST is the home of the Modern Greek program at IU, and they were instrumental in making John’s visit to All Saints back in January happen. Their ongoing support of these kinds of things is a real gift to the Orthodox community in Bloomington.

There are some additional irons in the fire where support is concerned that I hope to be able to announce in the near future. In the meantime, I can also say that one organization in particular, while feeling it was too late to get involved this time around, said that they would be very interested in supporting future projects like this, and asked what I might be thinking about. I told them something I had in mind, and they nodded vigorously and said, “Yes, that’s exactly the kind of thing we want to get behind.” So, we’ll see what happens. I am hopeful that the outcome of this development will also be positive with respect to these kinds of events.

In the meantime, if you want more information or are interested in supporting the Symposium, please contact me at rrbarret (AT) indiana.edu or call me at (812) 219-0286.