Cappella Romana
Founded in 1991, the Cappella Romana is a vocal chamber ensemble dedicated to combining passion with scholarship in its continuing exploration of the musical traditions of the Christian West and East, with emphasis on early and contemporary music. Its name is derived from the medieval concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which included not only “Old” Rome and Western Europe but also “New Rome” (Constantinople) and its commonwealth of Slavic and Syriac countries.

Based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the Cappella is flexible in size according to the demands of the repertory. The ensemble has a special commitment to mastering the difficult Slavic and Byzantine repertories in their original languages, thereby making accessible to the general public two great musical traditions that are little-known in the West. Leading scholars have supplied the group with their latest discoveries, while its music director has prepared a number of the ensemble’s performing editions from original sources. In the field of contemporary music, the Cappella has taken a leading role in bringing to American audiences the works of such European composers as Michael Adamis, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener, as well as promoting the works of North Americans. The ensemble has appeared several times on public radio, most notably in a nationwide broadcast on Public Radio International combining a performance of Arvo Pärt’s Passio under the guest direction of Paul Hillier with Russian Baroque music led by the group’s musical director.

Alexander Lingas
The Cappella Romana’s founder and director Alexander Lingas lives in England with his wife Ann, a baroque violinist, and daughter Margaret. He is presently British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford University’s St. Peter’s College and a Visiting Fellow at its European Humanties Research Centre. Dr. Lingas has received a number of academic awards, including a Fulbright Student Grant for musical studies in Greece with noted cantor Lycourgos Angelopoulos, a Junior Fellowship in Byzantine Studies at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Center in Washington, D.C., and a two-year Post-doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for study under Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, a prominent authority on Orthodoxy. He has spoken on BBC Radio 3 and lectured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, whilst scholarly articles by him have been published in London, Rome, and St. Petersburg, Russia. His projects for the near future include books on Sunday Matins in the Rite of Hagia Sophia and Byzantine experiments in polyphony for Harwood Academic Publishing, as well as an Onassis Fellowship for further study with Mr. Angelopoulos during the summer of 1999.