Echoes World of Chant Ancient and Modern
Enter quietly, take the knee and bow your heads as we enter the cathedral of Echoes and the World of Chant Ancient and Modern. We’ll be heading back about a millennium into the world of chants and hymns. In the 1990s, chant was all the rage with The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, topping classical charts and medieval hymns being reinvented by Enigma and Richard Souther for 20th century ears.
I think we were all surprised in the 1990s when medieval hymns started turning up on records. It wasn’t just the classical early music scene with recordings by The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos who peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200 Music chart in 1994. Electronica groups picked up on it like Enigma and then came the big breakthrough with the renaissance of Abbes Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th century mystic and composer. Groups like Sequentia were dedicated to her works. Then in 1994 Richard Souther cast her music into an electronic landscape with the album Vision: The Music of Hildegard von Bingen which topped Billboard’s Classical Cross-over Chart. And now, in the 21st century artists like Kevin Keller have delved into her music as has Azam Ali. So today, we’re exploring the world of gothic chant ancient and modern.