Symposium of Byzantine music researchers in Copenhagen

An open symposium devoted to the 75^th anniversary of the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae (ММВ) publishing project of Copenhagen University was held on June 16-17 at the Karlsberg Academy in Copenhagen. Its theme was ‘The Present State of the Byzantine Musical Research after the 75-year-long work of the MMB’.

There were participants from over 10 countries. The Russian Church was represented by Hieromonk Feofan Lukyanov, rector of the Moscow Patriarchate Parish of St. Alexander Nevsky in Copenhagen, and Sisters Judith and Ephrosinia of the New Tikhvin convent in Yekaterinburg.

The Byzantine music research was considered from musicological, liturgical, historical and paleographic perspectives. The reports considered the history of Byzantine music and the importance of the MMB publications for studies into the ancient traditions of various peoples. Specialists exchanged experience in the study of unique manuscripts, giving their descriptions, analyzing them and posing the question of their publication. Some presentations dealt with the Old Russian tradition including analysis of sourсes, notation and Slavonic literature.

The symposium was of great significance for exchange of scholarship on Byzantine music research and was a new contribution to the study of ancient Byzantine art of singing.

During the Sunday service on June 18 at the Russian parish, Sister Judith and Prof. Grigorios Statis of the Athens University chair of Byzantine music, sang liturgical hymns in ordinary and Byzantine modes.