Chant Foundation idea

Working, working, working. Life is so busy right now. The Monastery Tours are all happening, the construction projects at my house continue, and Mary has arrived from the Ukraine! Book editing is a nightly task.

My latest brainstorm is that I need to start a Foundation for the Preservation of Georgian Church Chant. This will be the second effort, the first having been started by Bishop Alexander Okropiridze in 1860. Someone needs to connect interest and funding from western countries, with the expertise and enthusiasm of penniless chanters and chant scholars in Georgia. There is so much work to be done. I can think of five major projects that need to be funded right off the top of my head. One of the big ones is transcribing the hand-written transcriptions from the late 19th century, which have survived in Soviet archives untouched since 1936, into computer files like Finale. After that, these chants can be published, copied, distributed…. Right now there is only one copy of these chants (uncounted but maybe as many as seven thousand that have never been published). We need to secure this material digitally and in print, and most importantly, begin to make these chants part of the liturgy again by teaching and singing them to future generations and international enthusiasts.

First things first: Foundation: website. Once we have a website, I can design projects, apply for funding, build a mailing list, recruit members, disperse information, post chant scholarship, etc.

Who can help me design such a website? For the love of chant, let’s make it happen!