Dr Alexander Lingas

Senior Lecturer

Centre for Music Studies

E: Alexander.Lingas.1@city.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)20 7040 3235
W: www.cappellaromana.org

Overview

Dr Alexander Lingas is the founder and Artistic Director of the vocal ensemble Cappella Romana and a Fellow of the University of Oxford's European Humanities Research Centre. His present work embraces historical study, ethnography, and performance.

Formerly Assistant Professor of Music History at Arizona State University's School of Music, he received his Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from the University of British Columbia. His academic awards include Fulbright and Onassis grants for musical studies with cantor Lycourgos Angelopoulos, a Canadian postdoctoral fellowship for study under Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, and a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship held at St Peter's College, Oxford.

His publications include articles for The Oxford Companion to Music, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. He is currently working on a study of Sunday Matins in the Rite of Hagia Sophia for Ashgate and a historical introduction to Byzantine Chant for Yale University Press.

Since founding Cappella Romana in 1991, Dr Lingas has appeared with the ensemble at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J Paul Getty Museum, the Pontificio Istituto Orientale in Rome, the Irish World Music Centre in Limerick, Princeton University, and Yale University. Cappella Romana has been featured on twelve compact discs, including Byzantium 330-1453 (the official companion CD to the Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition). Forthcoming recordings include a disc of 15th-century Byzantine and Latin music from Cyprus.

Research interests

Music and Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially Byzantine chant; Music and Identity in contemporary Eastern Europe and the Balkans; Diaspora Studies; Modern Greek Song; Music and Liturgy; Philosophies and Theologies of Music; Performance Practice.

Research and publications

Byzantium in Rome: Medieval Byzantine Chant from Grottaferrata, Cappella Romana (Cappella Romana 403-2CD, 2007).

'How Musical was the "Sung Office"'? Some Observations on the Ethos of the Byzantine Cathedral Rite', in Ivan Moody and Maria Takala-Rozsczenko, eds., The Traditions of Orthodox Music. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Orthodox Church Music, University of Joensuu, Finland 13-19 June 2005 (Joensuu, 2007), 217-34.

'Medieval Byzantine Chant and the Sound of Orthodoxy', in Andrew Louth and Augustine Casiday, eds., Byzantine Orthodoxies, Papers from the 36th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 131-50.

'Tradition and Renewal in Greek Orthodox Psalmody', in H.W. Attridge and M.E. Fassler, eds., The Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical and Artistic Traditions (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 341-56 [hardcover edition also available from Brill].

Research activities

Much of Dr Lingas's work as a scholar and performer revolves around his American-based ensemble Cappella Romana, whose projects include Early Music (especially medieval Byzantine chant), contemporary art music (including premieres of works by Michael Adamis, Robert Kyr, Ivan Moody, Peter Michaelides, Richard Toensing, and Tikey Zes), and the transmission of Byzantium's musical heritage to the modern West (notably the English Divine Liturgy project we have undertaken in cooperation with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain).

Podcasts of Cappella Romana's programme 'Mt Sinai: Frontier of Byzantium' are available at the site of the Sackler and Freer Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.  Video from the 2005 performance in Limerick, Ireland under the directorship of Dr Lingas's friend and colleague Ioannis Arvanitis is available from YouTube. Excerpts from the ensemble's concert of Old Roman and Byzantine chant for 'New Year's in Old and New Rome' is available from the 2003 archive of the American radio show Harmonia.

Before work finds expression in a concert programme or a disc with Cappella Romana, Dr Lingas is usually already deeply involved in that area through historical and/or ethnographic research. He regularly reports on his findings and gets feedback from his scholarly colleagues at the meetings of scholarly societies. In addition to being a member of several that serve broad constituencies - for example, the Royal Musical Association, the American Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology, and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology - he is active in a number of specialised groups relating closely to his areas of research. These include:

• IMS Study Group Cantus Planus
• Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies
• International Society for Orthodox Church Music
• The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society (UK)
• American Society of Byzantine Music and Hymnology
• The Orthodox Theological Society of America
• The Society for Oriental Liturgy
  

Dr Lingas also serves formally or informally as an advisor to organisations that have a more practical orientation:

• National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians (USA)
• Pan-Orthodox Society for the Advancement of Liturgical Music (USA)
• The Axion Estin Foundation (New York)
• The Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, UK