Levy and Velimirovic honorary doctorates

Two honorary doctorates were awarded by the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, Greece this past Monday, 18 October 2004.

The well-known professors, Milos Velimirovic and Kenneth Levy were the recipients.

Prof. Gregorios Stathis, a third generation Byzantine musicologist, also well known for his research in the field, professor of the Department of Music Studies introduced the recipients at the old university building just under the Acropolis in the Plaka area of historic Athens.

After the reading of the citations by the appropriate university professors and the presentation of the degrees and garbing, both professors offered papers:

M Velimirovic, "On the Byzantine influence in early slavonic chant"
K Levy, "Byzantine chant: some western perspectives"

The ceremony was concluded with the chanting of three hymns by the Maistores of the Psaltic Art, directed by Prof. A Chaldaiakis. After entering and chanting the megalynarion _Axion estin os alethos thn hypertheon_, the eighth and ninth odes of the kanon for Great and Holy Tuesday written by the monk Kosmas were chanted with the mele of Petros Lambadarios and Petros Byzantios in honor of K. Levy's work on certain Great Week troparia. The music programme was concluded with a verse of the Great Anoixantaria (Ps 103 [104]. 21b) according to the melos of the Byzantine composer Ioannes Kladas in honor of M. Velimirovic's work on the great vespers.

Present in the audience were a wealth of now fourth generation Byzantine musicologists, students of the University of Athens, as well as a number of well known researchers and choir directors, such as Michael Adamis, Kaite Romanou, Markos Dragoumis, Lykourgos Angelopoulos and others.

A truly memorable, but also historic meeting of three generations of Byzantine musicologists.

Congratulations to both recipients, sterling representatives of a second generations of Byzantine Musicologists and also members of the AMS!