Posts Tagged 'orthodox christian education'

A curriculum proposal for Byzantine chant

Published 14 May 2012 Academia , College , General , Media , music , The Orthodox Faith 3 Comments
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So, a couple of months ago, I suggested that learning to sing needs to be part of learning to chant, and even suggested that language and diction in the appropriate languages should be an expected part of one’s training, just as it is for a classical singer.

I’ve continued to chew on some of the implications of that post, and one of the outcomes of that was to draft a proposed curriculum for what a Byzantine chant concentration could look like in the context of an undergraduate music program. Obviously, this is all entirely hypothetical; I don’t know of any music schools that are itching to add this as a concentration. St. Katherine’s College could, I suppose, eventually try to incorporate something like this into their curriculum, but who knows. Hellenic College would probably be reasonably well set-up to do something like this, but they don’t even presently offer a music major.

A few assumptions I’m making: first and foremost, that there is an on-campus chapel with regular services. Second, that chapel services would make a full-on recital unnecessary; rather, have the student do a junior and senior exam that basically are an extended jury — where they prepare a certain number of compositions ranging in difficulty and sing 2-3 of them at the request of a committee. Third, that building a good cantor who is also a good musician will require some knowledge of Western music theory and notation (I’m less sold on keyboard skills, but it still seems instinctive to me to include) in addition to Byzantine music theory and notation. Fourth, that voice lessons won’t concentrate on things like “Caro mio ben” or “Silent Noon”. They may well include that kind of repertoire if the student really wants it and the teacher is able to do it, but beyond the universals of healthy production, the specifics will by and large be those of psaltic technique. Fifth, that the academic environment would be such that it would allow for patristic and theological discussion to occur within the context of music history courses.

One observation I make immediately is that this is a very full undergraduate degree. I started off with IU’s B. Mus. in Vocal Performance as a basis, while also consulting their Early Music Vocal Performance B. Mus., and then worked from there to focus it specifically on the requirements of Byzantine chant. As with IU’s Vocal Performance B. Mus., the general education requirements are quite minimal, but it’s still jam-packed. I think the keyboard skills part could perhaps be taken out/made an elective, maybe a case is made for 2 languages rather than three, and maybe you either don’t do credits for Chapel Choir or tweak the number of credits for voice lessons. But, all that said, the B. Mus. at IU is a very full degree, and that’s just how it is.

It seems that a couple of other useful curricula to come up with would be a B. A. degree, and perhaps a more general “Orthodox Liturgical Music” degree. It’d be nice to also include a course or two on Mediterranean folk music to be able to show the relationship between liturgical and vernacular musics (hinted at in the bit about “Mediterranean instruments”, which also assumes that such instruction would be available), but maybe that would have to be kept for the Masters degree.

Anyway, here’s the draft. I’m curious to hear thoughts.

—

Bachelor of Music in Performance, Byzantine Chant

Major Ensemble

Chapel Choir (1 cr.) required every semester of enrollment.

Performance Study

Voice. 3 credit hours each semester until senior exam is passed, at which point they may be reduced to 2. Required: entrance audition, freshman jury, upper-division examination, junior exam, senior exam.

Secondary Piano and Keyboard Proficiency

All students must pass a keyboard proficiency examination. Voice majors must take an examination for placement in a 3-semester class piano sequence (2 credits per semester) or take elective individual lessons (1-2 credits per semester) and continue study each semester until the keyboard proficiency examination is passed.

Core Music Courses

26 credit hours

  • Placement examination or Introduction to Musical Concepts (1 cr.)
  • Core Musical Skills I (1 cr.), Western Music Theory and Literature I (3 cr.)
  • Western Music Theory and Literature II (3 cr.)
  • Western Musical Skills II (1 cr.)
  • Byzantine Musical Skills I (1 cr.)
  • Byzantine Musical Skills II (1 cr.)
  • Byzantine Music Theory and Literature I (3 cr.)
  • Byzantine Music Theory and Literature II (3 cr.)
  • Byzantine Music Theory and Literature III (3 cr.)
  • History and Literature of Western Music (3 cr.)
  • History and Literature of Byzantine Music I (2 cr.)
  • History and Literature of Byzantine Music II (2 cr.)

The above must be passed with a C or better.

Advanced Music Literature and Music Theory

3 credit hours selected from:

  • Composer or Genre (3 cr.)
  • Topics in Byzantine Music Theory (3 cr.)
  • Pre-Reform Notation (3 cr.)
  • Analysis of Modal Music (3 cr.)
Other Music Courses

25 credit hours

Required:

  • Liturgics & Chant Literature: Services and Service Structure I (3 cr.)
  • Liturgics & Chant Literature: Services and Service Structure II (3 cr.)
  • Liturgics & Chant Literature: Idiomela I (3 cr.)
  • Liturgics & Chant Literature: Idiomela II (3 cr.)
  • Liturgics & Chant Literature: Anastasimatarion and Irmologion (3 cr.)
  • Applied Greek Diction for Singers (1 cr.)
  • Applied Arabic Diction for Singers (1 cr.)
  • Applied Romanian Diction for Singers (1 cr.) OR Applied Slavonic Diction for Singers (1 cr.)
  • English Diction for Singers (1 cr.).
  • Electives: 6 credit hours, including a minimum of 2 credit hours in pedagogy courses such as Introduction to Music Learning (2 cr.) or Vocal Pedagogy (3 cr.).

Electives may also include courses for music majors in sacred music, music education, techniques, conducting, composition, music history, music theory, opera, and unclassified courses. A maximum of 4 credit hours in early or Mediterranean instruments may be counted in this area.

General Education

23-35 credit hours

  • Written and Oral Expression English composition, 2 credit hours or competency.
  • Foreign Language 12-24 credit hours or proficiency, equivalent to two semesters of first-year language study.
    • Greek: Elementary Ecclesiastical Greek I (4 cr.) and Elementary Ecclesiastical Greek II (4 cr.); or Accelerated Ecclesiastical Greek (4 cr.).
    • Arabic: Elementary Arabic I (4 cr.) and Elementary Arabic II; or Accelerated Elementary Arabic (4 cr.).
    • Choice of:
      • Romanian: Elementary Romanian I (4 cr.) and Elementary Romanian II (4 cr.); or Accelerated Elementary Romanian (4 cr.). OR
      • Slavonic: Elementary Church Slavonic I (4 cr.) and Elementary Church Slavonic II (4 cr.); or Accelerated Church Slavonic (4 cr.)
  • Humanities 3 credit hours.
  • Life and Physical Sciences and Mathematics 3 credit hours.
  • Social and Behavioral Sciences 3 credit hours.
To Complete Degree

Free music or non-music electives as needed to bring the total credit hours to 120, excluding Chapel Choir.

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The Voice of the Lord: Selected Hymns from the Feast of Theophany

Published 20 May 2009 General , music , The Orthodox Faith Leave a Comment
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Yesterday I came to home to an unexpected surprise: a complimentary copy of The Voice of the Lord: Selected Hymns from the Feast of Theophany, a new recording of Byzantine chant in English dedicated to the memory of Sonia Belcher. Sonia was a dear friend of my priest and his family, and when she passed last February, Fr. Peter spoke about her quite a bit. This CD is quite the labor of love, to say the least, and proceeds from it will go to support The Theophany School in Boston, an Orthodox Christian school which began largely as a result of Sonia’s effort and perseverance.

The collaborators on the project are impressive, to say the least. Hieromonk Ephraim of St. Anthony’s Monastery (aka “Papa Ephraim”) composed the English-language versions of the hymns specifically for the recording (music found here under the entry for Theophany, 6 January); the protopsaltis is Rassem El Massih, a graduate of the Archdiocese of Tripoli’s School of Byzantine Music, and the choir roster is a who’s who of the new generation of Byzantine cantors in AOCNA — including Gregory Abdalah, Basil Crow, Jamil Samara, and Khalil Samara. Dn. Nicholas, Sonia’s husband, is also a part of the ensemble. As the notes say, the goal was to produce a recording of traditionally chanted Byzantine hymns re-composed for the English music, and specifically in the style idiomatic to the Patriarchate of Antioch.

I’ve only listened to it all the way through a couple of times thus far, but my initial impressions are that the result of their efforts is top-drawer through and through. The ensemble sings together beautifully and is very well-coordinated; the English diction is clear as a bell, and hearing the melodies match the English texts as well as they do is very refreshing. The liner notes do a moving job of telling the reader who Sonia is and just why she inspired both the recording project as a whole as well as this particular repertoire.

One curious thing I’ll note is that, as good as the English diction is — compare, for example, with the Mt. Lebanon Choir — the kind of sound the ensemble produces made my ear expect Arabic when I first popped in the disc. It took about ten seconds for me to be able to “hear” the English; when I listened to it a second time, I couldn’t believe that I’d had a problem in the first place. Go figure.

I’d like to thank Basil Crow and Khalil Samara for sending me the disc, and all involved for contributing a fine example of what traditional Byzantine chant can sound like when sung well in English. I’d like to encourage anybody who knew Sonia, or who might be interested in Byzantine chant or Orthodox Christian education, to buy this CD; it’s a more than worthy effort, and a more than worthy cause.

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