Wanting to keep the blog alive but not yet having time to devote to catching people up on what’s happening, I wanted to share this essay — it was written for my Modern Greek class last spring, and was heavily informed by an ethnomusicology seminar I was auditing on music and sacred experience. I thought about perhaps trying to publish it, and both my Greek instructor as well as the professor teaching the ethno seminar responded positively to it, but neither thought it was sufficiently in their field for it to be publishable in their circles. So, here it is for now. Some of these issues have been discussed here as well.
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6 February 2012 — Removed for reasons I’m very happy about. I’ll say more later.
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16 May 2012 — You can now find this essay in Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Vol. 55.1-4, pp. 181-98. Please contact me at rrbarret AT indiana DOT edu if you do not have access to a library system that has this available.
John Michael Boyer, Protopsaltis of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco. Mr. Boyer is also Protopsaltis and Director of Liturgy for Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Sacramento, CA, principal singer and arranger for 
Alexander Khalil, PhD, psaltis at St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church in San Diego, CA, and postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Khalil’s recent dissertation explores the aural aspects of the chant tradition of the last remaining chanters of the church of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul, Turkey. He has contributed as a cantor to recent efforts of both Cappella Romana and the Mount Lebanon Choir, and has taught at workshops for the Koukouzelis Institute.
Kurt Sander, DM, Associate Professor and Department Chair at Northern Kentucky University. Dr. Sander is a composer of many liturgical works in the traditional Slavic style, and his research interests include the history and aesthetics of Orthodox liturgical music, the cross disciplinary relationships between theology and Orthodox iconography with music composition, and the work of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.
Richard Toensing, DM, Professor Emeritus at University of Colorado at Boulder. As a composer, Dr. Toensing has received many distinguished honors for his work, having been a Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of a commission from the National Endowment for the Arts. Dr. Toensing’s composition Kontakion for the Nativity of Christ, as well as his cycle of Orthodox Christmas carols, were recently recorded and performed by Cappella Romana.
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 