Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia (Musical performances released on CD/DVD)
- Submitting institution
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City, University of London
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 512
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- CCRMA, Stanford University
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- November
- Year of first performance
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- Lost Voices is the climax of Icons of Sound, a multi-layered collaborative project over the period 2011–2019 based at Stanford University involving research in art history, acoustics, liturgiology, sound technology, and musical performance. Recording sessions in 2016 rested on critical insights gained cumulatively through the collection and analysis of a large body of data gathered from two continents: the reconstruction of chants and service texts from dozens of unedited medieval manuscripts, on-site acoustical measurements in Istanbul, and repeated sonic experiments in multiple venues with singers and evolving technology. Completion of the output (including surround sound) took another three years.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Lost Voices is the fruit of a sustained (2011–19) and multidisciplinary collaboration between Cappella Romana (for which I act as Musical Director) and the Icons of Sound research project at Stanford University co-directed by Professors Bissera Pentcheva (Art History) and Jonathan Abel (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics). Art history, musicology, liturgiology, performance practice, and innovative recording technology informed each other to investigate, re-create, and analyse medieval sacred sound in the former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia, now a mosque in modern Istanbul where no Christian chant is allowed. Offered for assessment are: 1. 80 minutes of previously unpublished and unrecorded medieval Byzantine chant from the rite of Hagia Sophia, which was created in the sixth-century CE and ceased completely in the fifteenth century CE. Offered in both standard stereo (CD) and high-definition 7.1 ATMOS surround sound (Blu-Ray DVD), this is the first vocal album in the world to be recorded entirely in live virtual acoustics Contextual information is provided by: 2. A 40-page booklet with scholarly essays, texts and translations; and 3. ‘The Voice of Hagia Sophia’, a 24-minute documentary film directed by Duygu Eruçman. Research undertaken by me to produce this output comprises: 1. Reconstructing performance materials from unedited medieval texts and musically notated manuscripts for the Constantinopolitan services for 14 September, an annual commemoration synthesising chant genres from Constantinople and Jerusalem (analysed with manuscript call numbers and bibliography in the booklet essay)
2. Transcribing medieval neumes into musical scores in modern notations and applying psalmodic formulae to unnotated psalm verses (75% of the editions by myself, the remainder by Spyridon Antonopoulos) 3. Realising the music in performance by directing and singing 4. Overseeing mixing and mastering to ensure proper liturgical placement of singers within the virtual acoustics of the stereo and surround-sound versions.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -