Benedict Sheehan: Vespers

Featuring

Benedict Sheehan
The Saint Tikhon Choir

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Compositional Technique

Benedict Sheehan's Vespers frequently uses irregular-meter chant melodies, allowing the melodies to dictate their own unique rhythmic structures rather than conforming to regular time signatures.

Recording & Production

This recording of Benedict Sheehan's Vespers was made in July 2021 at St. Stephen's Pro-Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, featuring the Saint Tikhon Choir under the composer's direction.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Composer Benedict Sheehan views his Vespers as a synthesis of chant with his own musical background, reflecting the diverse ethnic and ecclesiastical cultures within American Orthodoxy.

Composition History

Benedict Sheehan's Vespers, a choral setting of the Orthodox evening office, was commissioned by Fr. Sergius, the abbot of St. Tikhon's Monastery, who suggested it be "like Rachmaninoff."

Performer Biography

The GRAMMY®-nominated Saint Tikhon Choir is the first professional ensemble associated with an Orthodox monastery in America, founded in 2015 to promote American Orthodox choral tradition.

Composition History

Benedict Sheehan composed the majority of his Vespers during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020-2021, finding it an intensely productive period despite the global crisis.

Compositional Technique

The composer, Benedict Sheehan, used a chiastic structure, an ancient poetic device, to organize the two longest movements of Vespers, "The Opening Psalm" and "The Closing Psalm."