The Cantor’s Prayer, Fourth Boston Byzantine Music Festival

Cantor Georgios Theodoridis and Holy Cross St. Romanos the Melodist Byzantine Choir, directed by Grammenos Karanos, performing “The Cantor’s Prayer” at the fourth Boston Byzantine Music Festival, hosted by the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross, November 11–12, 2016. “The Cantor’s Prayer” is a psaltotragoudo (a song with scales and melodic motifs similar to those of ecclesiastical hymns) composed in 1991 by Vasileios Katsifis (1923–2015), a distinguished cantor, composer, and music teacher. It expresses the poet’s fervent prayer to become again a cantor in heaven and chant in eternity alongside the great cantors of the twentieth century.