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Visiting The Real Seikilos

May 29, 2012

A couple of days after our last concert of the season, one of our choir members – Aaron Reed – happened to be in Denmark and saw the Seikilos Tombstone, epitaph and all has this quick report:

Aaron and Seikilos

The Seikilos Epitaph (photo courtesy of VCS singer Aaron Reed)

The Seikilos Tombstone resides now at the Danish National Museum  –  Nationalmuseet in central Copenhagen. I discovered this having googled or wiki’d  “Seikilos epitaph” several weeks ago.  It was only on May 17 or so that I actually read the second page of what I printed out – and it said:

“the marble stele is now located in the National Museum of Denmark” 
I was scheduled to Copenhagen, coincidentally, two days after our performance.
It is normally on display in the Near Eastern and Classical Antiquities section but could not find it.  After scurrying back to the main lobby (the place is a bit of a maze), I had barely started to ask at the information desk and the fellow immediately knew … said he is accustomed to hasty visitors who are only interested in the Seikilos stone ….  and he directed me to another wing, where the stone is on display in a special exposition January 7 – June 3  called  “Europe Meets the World”.   As it was early afternoon on a gorgeous day, the exposition was empty, and the docent I encountered upon entering the room took me straight to the stone and told me I was welcome to attempt to photograph it with flash or without …  it is in a large plexi-glass cylindrical display case and in a dark room (as is evident in the pics). 
Aaron Reed's Photo of Seikilos  wide shot

The Seikilos Epitaph (photo courtesy of Aaron Reed)

Tagged With: aaron reed, copenhagen, national museum of Denmark, nationalmuseet, seikilos

Tickets Now Online for “Seikilos to U2”

May 12, 2012

T minus 7!

We’re a week away from our last concert of the season. “Seikilos to U2” promises to be a great show! We are delighted to tell you that in addition to our ambitions – of covering 2000 years of Western Music History in 90 odd minutes (including intermission, because why do anything by half measure?!) – you can also expect a pre-concert talk by our creative director, Jennifer Rodgers Beach.

In her own words, you can expect much music geekery, including “Gregorian chant as medieval scat.” Really, you gotta be there.

This is also our season’s concert for a cause, to support arts education in Fairfax County and beyond. And to that end, we’re also very proud and delighted to partner with two great organizations, OneVoice and Creative Cauldron, who represent the best of that mission.

OneVoice brings together children from across the globe through the universal language of music – OneVoice helps them sow the seeds of peace, love, and understanding in themselves. Or as they put it, brilliantly, “Power to the (little) people.”

And in fact, money raised at this event will fund art supplies (brushes, paint, paper) and music supplies (recorders) for the children at the Kakenya Center for Excellence (www.kakenyasdream.org), the primary school that OneVoice will be visiting in Kenya in just a few weeks.

Closer to home, Creative Cauldron is a not-for-profit arts organization providing opportunities for learning and participation and enjoyment of the performing and visual arts whether you’re eight or ninety-eight. Each year, Creative Cauldron provides about 7,000 in scholarships, so that children from families with financial need can participate in its after school and summer camp programs.

Please do come! We’ve had one of our most successful seasons and we’d love to finish it on a high note and with a full house. We still have plenty of tickets. And you can now avoid the rush at the door and buy them online!

 

Tagged With: creative cauldron, gregorian chant, jennifer rodgers beach, kakenya center for excellence, medieval scat, onevoice, seikilos, u2

From Seikilos to U2 in 90 Minutes

April 9, 2012

From Seikilos to U2

Poster art for May 2012 concert - artwork by Steven Keen/Keen Method

Seikilos? Who’s that? More like “what is that?” Per handy Wikipedia, the Sekilos epitaph is:

…the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone, near Aidin, Turkey (not far from Ephesus). The find has been dated variously from around 200 BC to around AD 100 but the first century AD is the most probable guess….While older music with notation exists (for example the Delphic Hymns), all of it is in fragments; the Seikilos epitaph is unique in that it is a complete, though short, composition.

We’re going to go from that to U2. With the history of Western music in between. In 90 minutes.

Tickets will be available shortly – stay tuned!

 

Tagged With: aidin, delphic hymn, ephesus, musical notation, seikilos, turkey, u2, uucf

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