21 June: Musical Conversation Day with Father Ivan Moody!

21 June: Musical Conversation Day with Father Ivan Moody!

Our last Conversation Day of the year – on Friday 21 June, at Wesley House, Cambridge (CB5 8BJ) – will be a very special event indeed, being both a presentation and a workshop of musical and theological reflection! The special guest for the day will be renowned composer and academic Revd Dr Ivan Moody. Father Ivan will speak on ‘Orthodox Aesthetics and Contemporary Art’, while illustrating his talk with musical pieces and eventually inviting the audience to dialogue and reflection on the theme of the day and on the music presented.

The programme of the Conversation Day is:
6.30 – 7.30 pm: First Session (presentation + conversation with public)
7.30 – 8 pm: Sandwiches and refreshments
8 – 9 pm: Second Session ( presentation + conversation with public)

Father Ivan studied composition with Brian Dennis at London University, William Brooks at York University and privately with John Tavener. He also studied Orthodox theology at the University of Joensuu, Finland. He is active as a conductor, having directed ensembles such as Voces Angelicae, the Kastalsky Chamber Choir (Britain), Capilla Peña Florida (Spain), Cappella Romana (USA), the Choir of the Cathedral of St George, Novi Sad, (Serbia) the Kotor Art Festival Choir (Montenegro), the Orthodox Choir of the University of Joensuu (Finland) and Ensemble Alpha (Portugal). Father Ivan is also a widely published musicologist. His research interests include the music of Eastern Europe, especially 20th century and contemporary music from Russia and the Balkans, the music of the Orthodox Church in the modern era, music and spirituality, music as theology, Serbian church music, the aesthetics of modernism and post-modernism and their intersection with Orthodox church music and the musical culture of the Mediterranean.

His most notable compositions include: Canticum Canticorum I (written for the Hilliard Ensemble and premiered in 1987), Prayer for the Forests, (1990), the oratorio Passion and Resurrection (1992), the cello concerto Epitaphios (1993), the cantata Revelation (1995), Endechas y Canciones (1996), the recorder concerto Pnevma (1998), Lamentations of the Myrrhbearer (2001) for string quartet, Lumière sans déclin (2000) for string orchestra, and the choral triptych Words of the Angel (1998), Troparion of Kassiani (1999) and A Lion’s Sleep (2002), the Dormition of the Virgin (2003) and many others.

You can listen here to a fragment of Father Ivan’s Akathistos Hymn (1998).