Around 300-strong choir from Sruti School of Liturgical Music in Kottayam under the Orthodox Theological Seminary is part of a global Syrian musical concert, being held in Geneva, that has participation from the U.S., Syria, Lebanon, and India.
Sruti school is among those invited to join the online concert, said Father Mathew Varghese.
The choir from Kerala joined the concert on Sunday, which is also the last day of the five-day concert series, he said.
Sruti school is engaged in popularising and imparting knowledge on Syrian musicology. Father Varghese said that the Syrian music was gaining popularity in the world, and that the concert series would be a positive step towards making it more popular in the future.
The Syriac musical tradition is an eastern heritage that is a symbol of historical exchanges and influences.
The musical series is being organised by the High School of Music of Geneva (Haute Ecole de Musique – HEM) in coordination with the Laus Plena Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland.
Sruti school has been invited to represent the Indian Syriac musical tradition, said the invitation extended to the Indian team addressed to Dr. Zacharia Mar Aprem (metropolitan), director of Sruti School of Liturgical Music in Kottayam.
The programme is focussed on a section with ancient Syriac melodies and texts, a section with mixed Syriac-Indian melodies, and texts as well as a section with pure Indian Syriac melodies and Indian texts.
One of the hymns is a combination of Syriac and Carnatic traditions composed by Father M.P. George.
The other concert participants include those from Qaraqosh, Iraq; Mardin and Mor Gabriel, Turkey, Byblos, Lebanon, and from the diaspora in Europe.