Completed in 1960, this outstanding choral setting of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy is also one of the first to have been written in English. Greek-American composer Peter Michaelides perceptively combines elements of Byzantine chant with modern neo-classicism to create unaccompanied liturgical music of uncommon elegance and spiritual depth. Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in its exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. Its name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople (“New Rome”) and its Slavic Commonwealth.
