CHANTS OF THE GREAT LENT
With its annual concerts of the Great Lent (previously in the Concert Hall “Ave Sol” and this year in Riga Cathedral), one of the best performers of the sacred music - the Riga Orthodox Chamber Choir "BLAGOVEST" under the direction of Aleksandrs Brandavs is continuing the tradition of public performances of the Great Lent chants, established in the 19th century in St. Petersburg by the great Russian composer Alexey Lvov, giving the opportunity to the secular audience to hear these chants filled with deep emotions and blessed solemnity.
The program of the Great Lent concert, as every year, will commence with Artemy Vedel's “Pokayaniya otverzi mi dveri” (Open to Me the Doors of Repentance), a composition that is sung only during the Great Lent and that expresses the essence of all human emotions during the Great Lent. The audience will have the opportunity to hear again movements of the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom of Sergey Rachmaninov and - performed by "BLAGOVEST" for the first time - an Ode from the Arvo Pärt's "Kanon Pokayanen" (Canon of Repentance). The concert program will also feature compositions, both traditionally included in the choir’s repertoire and newly discovered, by Alexander Arkhangelsky, Alexander Grechaninov, Pavel Chesnokov, Nikolai Golovanov, Georgy Sviridov.
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About the choir
Riga Orthodox Chamber Choir BLAGOVEST from Latvia was founded in 1990 with an aim to popularize forgotten treasures of Russian sacred music, which makes the most part of the choir's repertoire.
The choir has wide range of interests: from monophonic neumatic chants, called znamenniy raspev, based on Byzantine church music up to contemporary composers’ quests of spirituality. Various secular compositions of outstanding Russian, Latvian, and Western composers are included in the choir's repertoire as well. Read more