Lee Morgan photograph in Ocean Grove at the Starving Artist restaurant. Special to Blogfinger.net 2023.
Lee Morgan: “On entering the Starving Artist restaurant from the porch I noticed this beautiful evocative piece. A warm embrace flushed over me as I remembered my grandmother Laura Williams who passed at 100 years in 1984.
“It’s said that we live on through our having touched others.”
Blogfinger: Lee suggested some music for this piece. There is an album called The Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia by Cappella Romana. The selection below is called “Prokeimenon.” It is a sort of psalm in the Byzantine rite.
Lee Morgan heard about the Hagia Sophia music connection from an NPR report. It seems that a fabulous old Byzantine Orthodox church called Hagia Sophia was built in the 5th century in Istanbul. (Turkey.).
Composers wrote chants/music for that place over 1,000 years. That stopped in the 15th century when the church was turned into a mosque.
Hagia Sofia. Internet graphic.
When I was in high school I found a radio station that played Gregorian chants. I was mesmerized by that music sung accapella by monks. I never told anyone about my preoccupation back then. This Hagia Sophia music reminds me of that. PG
“Prokeimen”. By Capella Romana.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you are scrolling down and arrive at “older posts,” just click on that and you can scroll on unabated. PG
The current owners of the Starving Artist will be selling their business. We heard this from an OG source. PG