Athens • Choral Concert – Kassiane's Troparion

April 15, 2014, 20:30 – Athens

Choral Concert
Kassiane’s Troparion

Place: St. Alexander Church, Athens

Address: 14, St. Alexander str. & Alkyonis str., 175 61 Palaion Faliron, Athens

Performers:
Composition of P. Georgiou, for Soprano and choir
The Troparion of Kassiani (chanted during Holy Week on Great and Holy
Wednesday), is one of the most known chants for male voice. The chant has
often been arranged for four male voices (TTBB) by many Greek composers,
like Nikolaos Mantzaros, Themistoklis Polikratis and many other. But the
most spiritual polyphonic composition has been made on March 1961 by
Panagiotis Georgiou, one of the most important Athenian composers of
church music. The score is for TTBB and solo Soprano and the solo was
first sung by Aphrodite Ikonomou (1940-), a famous soprano of the Saint
Alexander Choir in Athens.

St Alexander choir
CONDUCTOR: PROFESSOR DIONYSIOS BENETTOS
Website ›

The Choir consists totally of men and performs the choral part during the
Divine Liturgy in Saint Alexander’s Church every Sunday (10.20 a.m. –
12.00 p.m.) of its operational year, which begins on the first Sunday of
November and lasts until mid-April. Additionally, it sings the “Hymn by
Kassiani” of Holy Wednesday Matins (Sequence of Bridegroom, Holy Tuesday,
approx. 20.30) every two years.

The main feature of the Choir is non-instrumental (a cappella) polyphonic
music for male voice, four-part (TTBB) and rarely three-part (TTB),
created in the 19th and 20th centuries by Greek and Russian composers for
orthodox worship ceremonies, e.g. the Divine Liturgy and the Rites of
Baptism (Christening), Wedding, Funeral, etc. Its activity is incorporated
in the 200-year Athenian tradition of Greek polyphonic ecclesiastical
music as one of the last representatives of this particular kind of music.
The regular and honorary members are amateur musicians, who believe in
continuation of the local music tradition expressed through the Athenian
school of polyphonic ecclesiastical music. Saint Alexander’s Choir was
founded by Ioannis Kottoros, Cantor at Saint Alexander’s Church in Palaion
Faliron, in 1943 and conducted by him until 2006. However, the existence
of a primary form of the Choir conducted by Agesilaos Papantoniou and then
Ioannis Kottoros in succession is traced in 1930s.

VIDEO: GEORGE LOGOTHETIS
SOUND: FOTIS MOSCHOS

Contact person: Anastasia Georgaki, email ›