"Byzantine Music: an Ode to God and its Path through Time": Our musical event at the Hellenic Center, London (21 Oct 2022)

On Friday 21/10/2022, our musical event on Byzantine music took place at the cultural organisation "The Hellenic Center", London. In a hall literally full of people, music had the first word.

In his opening speech, the President of Omilos referred to "the potential of every human being to be well" and then gave the basic tone of our musical presentation.

You can read his speech here:

"I would like to welcome you all and to thank you for coming tonight at our event. (…) Let me introduce myself. I have the honor and the responsibility to be the President of Omilos Eksipiretiton (The Servers’ Society), which has existed in Greece for 42 years now. We work upon the human being, because we believe in the potential of every person to be well. The best way to realize this is to believe in and express spirituality within each person.

Greece has great roots; they begin from ancient times and reach up until today. If we think for a while what are the first sounds that a person in Greece hears when they are born, we will see that the first sounds are from the parents, the mother and the father and the second is from Byzantine music. From the priest, who gives the blessing to the child after forty days to go out into the society. Byzantine music, that is, church music, has been directly linked to the Greek people since ancient times.

In a sense, the Greek see in themselves the priest as the continuance of the ancient wise man, with the beard and the tunic, the cassock.

These things pass into the consciousness of the people.(…)

So, let's delve deeper into Byzantine music, which has permeated all Greeks and I believe it is a timeless and universal music."

Afterwards, the audience, among whom were professors and students of Universities and Colleges in the United Kingdom, watched in fascination the course through the historical background and the characteristics of Byzantine music; everyone participated with great enthusiasm in the chanting during the presentation and in the experiential workshop that followed as well.

In fact, some of the professors who attended asked to stay in touch with Omilos as they found our presentation complete, comprehensive and very lively and they expressed their interest to use it in their lessons.

People's impressions are very revealing of their experience:

“Thank you - it was an unusual and unifying activity.” (A.H.)

“Very good research and very good presentation! It was my pleasure to attend.” (J.L.)

“I learned a lot today about Byzantine music that, as a Greek, I thought I knew!” (T.F.)

The Hellenic TV, the channel of the Greek diaspora, was there with its exquisite executives, and covered the event, so that we will soon have the opportunity to watch it in its program.

We would like to thank everyone who honored us with their presence and participation, as together we co-created a mystical evening.

Once again we experienced the power and sweetness of unity, when the souls vibrate and sing "in chords and instruments", with the voice and the heart.