ORTHODOX

Byzantine chanting gets to me like no other music on earth. i feel lucky to have grown up with it. i remember the amused look on my dad's face when, at the age of 13, i asked to borrow his large collection of Byzantine cassettes so i could dub them. the most coveted "souvenir" i brought back from Greece after my first visit at age 10 was a cassette of the monks of Patmos (which i wore out after a couple years of constant listening). even though i'm not a regular church goer anymore the The Divine Liturgy devastates me like nothing else. most of the men in my family are church chanters, from Oakland to Athens. if you've never been to an Orthodox service you should check it out, just for curiosity's sake, i guarantee you've never seen anything like it...the service hasn't changed in over 2000 years, every action is determined by tradition, from the lighting of a candle to the direction the priest is facing, it's a real living history. i think it's beautiful.