Portland State Magazine Winter 2011

Twenty years ago, Alexander Lingas '86 started Cappella Romana, the only professional Byzantine choir in the world. Photo by Bill Stickney. Channeling medieval voices MEDIE VAL CHORAL MU SIC-dramatic, harmonic, and unheard for more than 500 years-is the specialty of Cappella Romana, a Porcland-based vocal ensemble started 20 years ago by singer and music scholar Alexander Lingas '86. The choir, considered a world leader in the performance of Byzantine chant from ancient manuscripts, is launching its 20th anniversary season with performances April 2 in Portland's St. Mary's Cathedral and April 3 in Seatcle's St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. For Lingas, the music performed by Cappella Romana comes from a nurtured appreciation of Eastern choral music. While growing up in Portland, he spoke his parents' native language, Greek, and attended a Greek Orthodox Church where he sang in the choir. Lingas's foray into professional performances is another story-one with a cataclysmic start. In 1989, an earthquake damaged a Greek Orthodox cathedral in San Francisco. Lingas organized a fundraising performance of Byzantine choral music, the subject of the di ertation he was hard at work on. He gathered friends and colleagues for rwo performances, dubbed the group Cappella Romana, and, chat, ays Lingas, "was the beginning of the ensemble." Cappella Romana evolves with every performance, drawing different singers, depending on che requirements of the music. Sometimes the performance may have 30 singer , sometimes four. Singers gather from around the world-the United Kingdom, United Scace , Greece, and beyond-forming for a particular performance or ea on, then dis olving. 6 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE WINTER 2011 ne of the be t pares about being in che group, ays Lingas, who remains ics arciscic director, "is the shared love of mu ic. It' a commicced group of singers, a collegial environment. We all gee along well-go our to the pub together. So it's a community of friends, too." The group performs primarily in Pordand and Seacde, but it's collaborated with che Metropolitan Museum ofArt in New York and the Royal Academy ofArt in London, among ochers. A dozen recordings have been made, and the Portland Baroque Orchestra features the group in its annual Messiah. For his work with the ensemble, Lingas, now an instructor in London and at Oxford University, earned the 2010 Medallion of St. Romanos the Melodist awarded by the ational Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians. 11,e award honors "exemplary national contributions to church musi in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese ofAmerica." His wife, Ann Warton Lingas '88, a baroque violinist and former concercmaster for the Porcland Youth Philliarmonic, is finishing a doctorate at Oxford, where they live with their two daughters. WE WANT TO HEAR about your books and recordings and your future exhibits, performances, and directing ventures. Contact the magazine by e-mailing psumag@pdx.edu, or mailing Portland State Magazine, Office of University Communications, PO Box 751, Portland OR 97207-0751.