Choir
Psaltes – Chanters
One thing people notice when visiting our church is how much chanting is used! We chant or recite almost everything! Our church continues the Byzantine musical tradition which has its own unique system of musical notation, with a manuscript line that can be traced all the way back to the 800s. Our church’s poetic hymnology goes back to the 1st century. We read New Testament passages from their original Greek (1st century AD) and Old Testament passages from the Septuagint Translation (2nd century BC).
In a country like Australia, where musical training is overwhelmingly in the Western European musical system, choosing to follow another, unique musical tradition is a labour of love.
Our church has been served by many gifted chanters since its establishment including:
Ioannis Kotsonis, Stephanos Papastavrou, Ioannis Hatzidis, Athanasios Ouzounoglou, Antonios Aristodemou, Christos Theodoridis, Theonas Sevastopoulos, Dionysios Voulimis, Panagiotis Vlachos, Emmanuel Vlachos, Marios Chryssavgis, Tasos Kalogerakis & Yiangos Thoma.
Several choirs using Western European repertoire have also intermittently sung in our church since 1962, including the Orpheus Choir and the Millenium Choir.
A new generation of Australian-born, bilingual chanters have served in our church since 2007. They have included: Konstantinos Koutsouras, George Karpouzos, Dimitrios Koutsouras, Harry Mavrolefteros, Andrew Boucas & Eleni Mavrolefteros. These main chanters have been aided and augmented in choral chant by the following: Stavroula Ioannou, Evangelos Kardaras, Katerina Mavrolefteros, Panayiota Souleles, Timothy and Angela Yalizis, George Panaretos, Kim Ioannou, Isabella Devine-Poulos, Anna and Thalia Conomos, Katerina Papadakis, Maria Mavrolefteros, Epaminondas Passaris, Elessa Stivactas & Thomae Coustas.
Anyone interested is welcome to join.