Re-Creating the Sounds of an Ancient Greek Church

The sound reverberates through the space, immersing hundreds of spellbound listeners.

Eyes fall closed, heads bow in prayer and fidgety limbs come to rest. The crowd is lost in a Byzantine soundscape as five singers chant the Akathistos hymn, an Orthodox liturgical chant composed in the sixth century.

But as they sit in a gym on Normandie Avenue in Central LA, the audience is not only hearing the singers. They are also hearing the sounds of Agia Sophia, one of the oldest churches in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.