Schools of Byzantine Chant

This page covers the current situation with respect to accreditation of psaltic knowledge, the teaching centres and a list of teaching/learning materials.

Accreditation

Patriarchal officia:

The  four main patriarchal titles below represent the highest level of psaltic experience as that was transmitted live in the Great Church for hundreds of years.

Archon Protopsaltis of the Great Church (the right psalti)
Archon First Domestichos of the Great Church (the helper of the right psalti)

Archon Lambadarios of the Great Church (the left psalti)
Archon Second Domestichos of the Great Church (the helper of the left psalti)

Honorary titles given to non-Patriarchal people:

Archon Protopsaltis of the Holy Archdioces of Constantinople (honorary title)
Archon Music Teacher (Mousikodidaskalos) of the Great Church (honorary title)
Archon Teacher of the Apostolos (Didaskalos tou Apostolou) of the Great Church (honorary title)
Archon Hymnodos of the Holy Archdiocese of Constantinople (honorary title)

Conservatorium titles:
The following are just degrees that recognise psaltic knowledge that has been previously (or is being simultaneously)  acquired by training on the analogion of a church, next to a teacher psalti. Courses are available in many (not all) music schools around Greece:

Certificate of Ieropsaltis (3 year course)
Recognising ability to chant.

Degree of Byzantine Music (+2 year course = 5 years in total)
Recognising good knowledge of theory and practice.

Diploma of Byzantine Music (+2 year course = 7 years in total)
Recognising advanced knowledge of theory and practice.

The following course was recently established in Athens Conservatorium (Ωδείο Αθηνών)
Post-graduate degree in Byzantine Music (+3 year course)
Recognising research in advanced musicological topics of Byzantine Music.

University titles:

The following do not reflect psaltic experience. They can be purely research based.

Degree in Byzantine Musicology (4 year course)
PhD in Byzantine Musicology (indefinite duration)
Professor/Lecturer/etc. of Byzantine Musicology
(Last time I checked there were no other postgrad courses than PhD, there may be now.)



Schools/Courses

(incomplete)

Here  I will include details (addresses, numbers, fees) etc. mainly of Byzantine music schools that provide official accredication (recognised by either the Church or the Greek State, or both).

Courses run by Holy (Arch)Dioceses

The Byzantine Music School  of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia
The Byzantine Music School of the  Holy Metropolis of Ilia, Greece

Courses run by private or public music schools

Athens Conservatorium
Fillippos Nakas Conservatorium.
Nikos Skalkotas Conservatorium

The following submitted by Bogdan Blandu

Aristotelian University (Thessaloniki)
(post graduate program-research and teaching byzantine, post-byzantine and traditional musical repertoire) Staff: Leonidas Asteris, Harilaos Taliadoros, Dimitrios Sourlantzis, Antonios Alygizakis. The course is in collaboration with the University of Macedonia and the Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies.

University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki)
A 4 year course at www.uom.gr. Teachers are Antonios Alygizakis and Panagiotis Panagiotidis.

Forminx (Athens)
Under the direction of Elias Rediadis-Toumbas - protopsaltis Address: Korah 50, Moshato, Athens, Greece

National Music University  (Bucharest Romania)
with byzantine music section www.unmb.ro . Teaching staff: Archimandrite Sebastian B. Bucur (degree in Byzantine Music from Thessaloniki with Excellent grades) and archdeacon Gabriel Oprea (also with a degree in music and a very good psaltis).

The following submitted by Shota Gugushvili

Moscow (Russia)
course run by Konstantinos Fotopoulos (organised by the publishing house "The Holy Mountain")


Submit a school/course that you know



Teaching/Learning Material

(incomplete)
The whole of analogion.com consists of teaching/learning material. Here is a space specifically for exercises/slides/etc. made specifically for teaching students.

Ioannis Margaziotis'  exercise book in pdf with attached audio from his late student Konstantinos Katsoulis [pdf, 40 Mb] from stdemetrioscalgary.org

Subdcn Karim El-Far's Exercises [html]

Submit a resource that you know