K. Giannoukaki -- I am curious, is there a possibility that I might be able to see this proposal? You have mentioned it to me before, and I would be interested to read it myself. Since moving to a GOA parish, I have been, ας πούμε, encouraged to involve myself in Federation/National Forum affairs; perhaps I could help.
I also would like to actually see this proposal and the names of those that signed on. Mr. Giannoukakis mentioned 50 signatures of chanters? I for one only hear about this here on Psaltologion. Anyone else have prior knowledge of this?
Dear Richard,
It would be best to ask the former Chairperson of the Forum for a copy.
If the former Chairperson refuses to send it to you, I will be more than happy to post it publically.
In essence, it proposed a network of "schools" of BM across the USA where BM would be taught in a systematic and in depth manner by the psaltae with classic and traditional training and many years of expertise and service to the church.
The psaltae teachers proposed represent the tradition of the Mother Church, have the CREDIBILITY as representatives of traditional chant, conferred by the Psaltae Masters of old-time, Protopsaltae of great renown in Greece.
As the program evolved, the core group of teachers would invite other psaltae/teachers to increase the density of the network. Most of these "schools" (or annexes of a School of BM) would offer training in Greek/English and any other language where there was interest. BM along with Typikon would be emphasised and where there was an interest, implementation of Byzantine chant by established choirs would be facilitated.
This School of annexes (or schools) would not operate in the void as it would have a Hierarch of the Synod in its midst, and most critically, it would involve the Archon Protopsaltis of the Great Church of Christ (currently Mr. Leonidas Asteris) and the resident Professor of Byzantine Music of the Theological Seminary of the GOA (currently Mr. Grammenos Karanos) in its curriculum, and its testing. The internet would be leveraged to bring Constantinople in touch with the US annexes and the internet would also be used as a one-to-one and/or one-to-many didactic medium with real-time video interaction between teacher/student(s). Technology and resources from Pittsburgh-area universities, especially those available to www.asbmh.pitt.edu would facilitate the internet linkage.
We emphasised that no money would be required to realise this. Perhaps that was our mistake and the politburo of the Forum would have preferred a project that sought money.
Again, get the full proposal from the former Chairperson.
NG
Interesting, but I would still like to see the actual proposal. Nick, would you be willing to post it?
I will do so and see what kind of response I get. I'll let you know.
Incidentally, the notion that you may have been better off acting like you needed money may be quite right; my off-the-cuff impression is that one of the political issues between the Federation/National Forum people and chanters is that chanters basically bypass the National Forum by the very nature of who does what. The National Forum doesn't provide any resources that chanters really need (even the liturgical guidebook wouldn't be necessary to a psaltis accustomed to interacting with the actual liturgical books), and the materials that chanters do use are not under the imprimatur of the National Forum. If the National Forum held, say, the exclusive rights to distribute the Anastasimatarion of Petros Lambadarios in North America, that might be one thing, but that's not the case, and there's not really anything the National Forum can do to regulate what chanters do otherwise (beyond the politics of who gets to sing the Divine Liturgy on Sunday). So the National Forum may well have seen your proposal and said, well, what do you need us for if you're not asking for anything, since you don't really need us to begin with? That may not have been the right response, but knowing at least some of the parties involved, I could see that as a possible scenario.
Richard
Richard, were you able to get this proposal?
Is the National Forum even necessary? Can't the chanters and byzantine choirs of America create their own National Association which can then support these types of projects?
Sincerely,
Taso