Fontes do canto sacro do Leste: Diálogos entre manuscritos e tradições

Ivan Moody (CESEM – NOVA University of Lisbon) e Svetlana Poliakova (CESEM – NOVA University of Lisbon)

This open class is focused on the liturgy and music of Eastern Christianity. In addition to a survey of the main characteristics of the Eastern Rite, we will focus on some specific local traditions such as the tradition of Orthodox sacred music in Serbia, which is unique. Initially part of the Byzantine world, Serbian church culture soon developed very particular characteristics. Beginning with the Byzantine manuscripts of mediaeval Serbia, this part of the seminar will trace the path of the sacred repertoire from this time, through the Ottoman period, when it became an oral tradition, until the 19th century, when it began to be notated again by “melographers” such as Stevan Mokranjac. In its turn, this repertory, recovered as a body of written music, formed the basis of new processes of polyphonic composition, down to the present day.

The seminar will be delivered in Portuguese.

This event is part of the ongoing CESEM research project “Canto Cristão do Leste em Portugal”.

Ivan Moody is an internationally renowned composer, conductor and musicologist. His largest works to date are Passion and Resurrection (1992), the Akáthistos Hymn (1998), and Qohelet (2013). He has directed many choirs throughout Europe and the Americas. He has lectured and published widely on contemporary music from Russia, the Balkans and the Iberian Peninsula, on music and spirituality and on musical cultures from Southern Europe. In 2014 He published Modernism and Orthodox Spirituality in Contemporary Music. He is a researcher at CESEM – Universidade Nova, Lisbon, Chairman of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music, a founder member of the Music Panel of the European Academy of Religion, and head of the music section of the International Orthodox Theological Association. He is a protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Diocese of Spain and Portugal.

Svetlana Poliakova graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatoire, and she holds a PhD from the NOVA University of Lisbon. Since 2008 she has taught auditory training and theory, techniques of composition, theory and practice in the music of the Byzantine rite, theory and analysis of Western Medieval Music, and theory and practice of basso continuo at the same University, in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department of Musicology. Since 2004 she has been a researcher at CESEM (Centre for the Study of Sociology and Musical Aesthetics in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities), Universidade Nova of Lisbon. Founder and director of the Academic Choir Romanos Mélodos, FCSH, and director of the Pravoslava Chamber Choir.

Second series of Interdisciplinary Research Seminars

Manuscritos em Diálogo

The interdisciplinary research seminars Manuscritos em Diálogo are jointly organized by the CESEM and the IEM . These seminars are envisioned as didactic events devoted to spread useful information on how to tackle the study and description of different kinds of medieval manuscripts, mainly Iberian. The seminars aim to create bridges among scholars from different areas and promote dialogue between them.

Scholars gathered together for the first series of seminars Manuscritos em Diálogo in the 2018 spring semester at the FCSH-NOVA University of Lisbon. Papers dealt with issues related to plainchant and manuscript copy, Eastern and Western liturgies, conservation and restoration of medieval manuscripts, and musical iconography.

The new series of seminars will be held monthly from September 2018 to January 2019. Papers will be delivered in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English. All events are free and open to the public.

The research seminars Manuscritos em Diálogo are organized by Elsa De Luca and Alicia Miguelez.

DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAMME HERE