AFCN 2024
Between July and November 2024, the REVIVART Association, in partnership with the National University of Music in Bucharest, the Center for Studies on 19th Century Music (CNCMS), the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and several other public and private institutions, carried out the project „PSALT (Psalmody and Alternative Systems of Tonal Language),” which aimed to reintroduce into the interpretive circuit a repertoire from the mid-19th century, captive in the Cyrillic alphabet. Two hundred creations were linguistically and semiographically updated, constituting a source of information on the musical practices of the time. At the end of the project, an interpretive competition was organized with pieces semiographically recovered by the research team. At the end of the project, a performance competition was organized with pieces recovered semiographically by the research team. At the same time, „Noul Doxastar” vol. I (1841), translated from Greek by psalmist Anton Pann, was republished for the first time, and 10 pieces were recorded on CD.
The beneficiaries of the project activities had access to no less than 20 interactive online workshops: 10 workshops on Byzantine singing in Romanian and Cyrillic paleography led by Associate Professor Gabriel Constantin Oprea, PhD, designed to introduce beginners to Byzantine music with the Cyrillic alphabet, 5 workshops on Kievan chant and Slavonic paleography led by Dr. Yevgheniya Ygnatenko, associate professor at the Tchaikovsky National Music University in Ukraine, and 3 workshops on Constantinopolitan Byzantine chant and Greek paleography led by Prof. Achilleas Chaldaiakis from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, dean of the Faculty of Music Studies and conductor of the Greek choir „Maeștrii Artei” (Masters of Art). Achilleas Chaldaiakis from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, dean of the Faculty of Music Studies, conductor of the Greek choir „Masters of Psaltic Art,” performer, paleographer, musicologist, and internationally renowned composer. At the same time, the beneficiaries took part in a masterclass in Byzantine and Oriental instrumental music, held by Anastassia Zachariadou from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Between July 1 and November 1, 2024, no fewer than 10,303 beneficiaries from 10 countries (Romania, Greece, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Moldova, the United States, and Luxembourg) watched approximately 595.5 hours of video content produced as part of the AFCN project, which had 120,600 views on YouTube. Similarly, on Facebook, approximately 40,000 people interacted with the pieces reconstructed as part of the AFCN project.
In order to carry out the research activities outlined in the implementation plan, the team coordinated by musicologist Nicolae Gheorghiță investigated musical documents from several libraries in Romania and abroad. The main objective of the research was the linguistic and musical updating, transliteration, and re-editing of songs from Dionisie Fotino’s Noul Doxastar, translated and printed in 1841 in Bucharest by Anton Pann.
