Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist

I just found out this evening that we are the recipient of a grant from the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians. As with all the other organizations that have been generous in supporting us, I’m incredibly grateful, but it is wonderful to see our little event, intended to represent a cross-section of musical heritages of the Orthodox world, be supported across jurisdictional lines. Dr. Vicki Pappas, National Chairman of the National Forum, cited this as a factor in the award letter:

The members felt that while it was unusual for us to support an individual parish and one not within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s jurisdiction, we also felt that your plans were cross-jurisdictional and served to highlight and benefit Orthodox church musicians in general to a very high degree.

In a way, the National Forum grant application is what got this going in the first place. Originally I had just planned on having John Boyer and Kurt Sander, and then I helped another organization write a National Forum grant proposal. While I was writing it, I realized — “Hey! I could apply for one of these too! And actually, if I expanded the slate of speakers, I’d have a better proposal!” So I checked with Alexander Khalil and Dr. Toensing to see if they were up for it — they were, and I submitted the application. After that, I got to thinking — “You know, I have a finished grant proposal sitting on my hard drive that I might be able to tailor for other organizations.” So, I started looking around to see what else might be out there, and — well, things happened from there.

All of this is to say, I’m really thrilled that the grant proposal that started the ball rolling to begin with bore fruit in the end. Thank you very much, Dr. Pappas and the National Forum!