Cappella Romana’s latest recording—Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia—a gem of Byzantine music. Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia is the first vocal album in the world to be recorded in live virtual acoustics, in this case those of Hagia Sophia, which boasts an over 11-second reverberation time. Hagia Sophia is the massive 6th-century UNESCO World Heritage Site in Constantinople (now Istanbul). Built as a Greek Orthodox cathedral, converted to a mosque in 1453, then a museum, and now again a mosque, Hagia Sophia was the world’s largest enclosed space for 1000 years.
Click here for NPR’s 4-minute demonstration of this unique union of art and science. You can also watch Cappella Romana’s 2016 Live Performance at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall and the 24-minute documentary video on the making of the recording on Cappella Romana’s Facebook Page.