[STOTS Communications, South Canaan, PA] The Chamber Choir of St. Tikhon's Monastery performed a memorial concert of sacred music, including Tchaikovsky’s Nine Sacred Pieces, at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Pro-Cathedral, Wilkes-Barre, PA on Sunday, May 28. 

 

After hearing Tchaikovsky’s seminal compositions, performed in the original Church Slavonic, the crowd responded with such a long and rousing standing ovation that the Choir, which had not prepared an encore, repeated one selection.

 

In attendance were various distinguished guests, including His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, His Eminence Archbishop Irenee, and His Eminence Archbishop Michael. 

 

In the first half of the program, the men of the Chamber Choir, which is a professional ensemble, were joined by some of the most talented members of the St. Tikhon's Seminary Choir for a performance of Stepan Smolensky’s deeply contemplative Memorial Service for Tsar Alexander III (1904), scored for male chorus, and presented in a new English transcription by Benedict Sheehan, Director of Music at the Seminary.

 

Selections from the concert will be airing on WVIA 89.9 FM Public Radio.   The first installment of the recording will be aired during a weekly show, Music from Saint Stephen's, this coming Sunday, June 4. Listeners can hear the program twice in the same day: from 7:00-7:30 am and from 4:00-4:30 pm.