Alexander Lingas: Cosmic Music

Alexander Lingas, Music Director and founder of Cappella Romana, is a Professor Emeritus of Music at City, University of London, and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies(Cambridge, UK). He completed his doctorate on Sunday matins in the rite of Hagia Sophia at the University of British Columbia and then, with the support of a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship, moved to Oxfordshire to study theology with Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. From 1997 to 2021 he was a Fellow of the University of Oxford’s European Humanities Research Centre. His present work embraces not only historical study but also ethnography and performance. His awards include Fulbright and Onassis grants for musical studies in Greece with cantor Lycourgos Angelopoulos, the British Academy’s Thank-Offering to Britain Fellowship, research leave supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and the St. Romanos the Melodist medallion of the National Forum for Greek Orthodox Church Musicians (USA). In 2018 His All-Holiness, Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, bestowed on him the title of Archon Mousikodidáskalos. He is currently the Spring 2023 Artist in Residence at the Institute of Sacred Arts at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York.

Consulting with Peter Bouteneff at a Cappella Romana recording of the music of Arvo Pärt, in Portland, OR

At a Cappella Romana concert at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in New York, February 17, 2023.

Lingas, being decorated by the Archbishop of Iasi. What he really wanted, though, was the hat of the fellow behind him.