A wild tapestry of styles, the piece proved endlessly fascinating, probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Read More
Saint Tikhon’s Monastery and Seminary are proud to announce that their music director, Benedict Sheehan, played key roles in two of the 2019 GRAMMY®-nominated projects for “Best Choral Performance” as announced on Friday, December 7, 2018.
Read MoreBasing my musical vocabulary on Russian chant, as well as on the various approaches to harmonizing chant typified by composers of the celebrated Moscow Synodal School, I finished composing the 70-minute score in June of 2018.
Read More
Scholar Richard Taruskin describes Kastalsky as “unquestionably the greatest and most creative connoisseur of Russian folk polyphony that ever was.” At the very least the vivid tapestry of chant and folk music sounds in this wide-ranging work may send listeners on a mission to investigate more of Kastalsky’s music.
Read More
It’s an undeniably lovely piece, and it must be engaging for the chorus to sing. Kastalsky, born in 1856, was a student of Tchaikovsky and a mentor to Rachmaninoff, and an acknowledged leader, even trailblazer, in Russian Orthodox church music. His choral writing is gorgeous, with much emphasis on effective use of the women’s voices, and a lighter touch than one might expect on the dark male voices that are such a feature of much Orthodox chant.
Read More
And so I sat on a Sunday afternoon in a church attempting to hold back tears and racking my brain trying to remember what I knew about Sergei Rachmaninov, about his choral work All-Night Vigil,op.37 just so the emotions wouldn’t overwhelm me.
Read More
Benedict Sheehan’s role, not only as the composer of the music on the present CD, but also as the driving force behind the formation of the Chamber Choir of St. Tikhon’s Monastery and its conductor on this disc, shows just what a multi-faceted and formidably creative individual he is.
Read More