Biography
The Holy Monastery of St John of San Francisco, founded in 1996, is a community of Orthodox Christian monk and novices living in community in Manton, a small town in northern California, in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, of whom four men sing in the choir.
The collection on this CD represents many of the different styles of music that is sung at the monastery: Valaam and Byzantine-style chant as well as some music which has been composed to meet the needs of our community. As Orthodoxy moves from being an immigrant religion in this county towards an indigenous expression of the ancient Christian Faith, it is natural and necessary for such a progression to include the development of music native to our hearts. Monastics have often been the initiators of such creativity. As Fr. Alexander Schmemann once said regarding liturgical development: "The absence of such development would be the sign of a fatal sclerosis."
It is the monastery's vision that a uniquely American chant will gradually develop, growing up from the seeds of our inherited traditions. As they take root in American soil, this chant will become an organic hybrid of different influences from our own folk melodies and harmonies, rooted in the traditions of our ancestors and drawing from the springs of the memorable melodies of the Carpatho-Rus' and the timeless and other-worldly modalities of western Gregorian chant and its eastern counterpart, Byzantine chant.
The monastery's hope is that the medium of the "American chant" will impel us to worship in spirit and truth from the depths of our hearts and enable us to pray the prayers and sing the rich texts of our ancient faith with the same honest fervor today as when the words were first composed. Thus the American people of God may enter into the eternal dialog between the Church and her God.
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