Ms. Amy Hogg: Welcome back to Part Two of our interview with chanter and composer Chadi Karam. In this segment, he tells us more about his composition process and some of the tricky issues he’s encountered when composing in English.

Do you write your compositions by hand first?

Mr. Chadi Karam: Yes. Unless it is a metered or like a small hymn like an apolytikion or kontakion: I just type it right away. But for big hymns like the Doxastika or stuff like that, I write them because I make a lot of changes. I usually write the music, forget about it for a couple days, and then come back to it with a fresh eye and make changes. Like two days ago I composed “O heavenly King” at 11:30 p.m. At 12:00 a.m., it was done, so I closed my notebook and I went to bed. Then the next day I changed half of it.

Ms. Hogg: Yeah, you sleep on it, and you think how you’re going to do stuff.

Mr. Karam: Yes.

Mr. Richard Barrett: And then you also composed idiomela for St. Raphael of Brooklyn, is that right?

Mr. Karam: Correct. I metered those because they weren’t metered. That was not my first attempt to meter something in English. The first attempt was the St. Jacob of Hamatoura service. I translated it mostly with Elio Nicolas. So he translated— Like, he started translating it, and he shared with me what he translated, and there were some missing parts that I went ahead and translated to finish the service. Then I metered everything, and I ran the texts by the Department of Liturgics. They made some changes here and there, but, yes, that was my first attempt in translation and metering for something in English. Now we are in the process of translating to English the service of St. Joseph of Damascus.

Mr. Barrett: Very nice.

Mr. Karam: Once it’s done, yeah, I will start working on the metering and composition.

Ms. Hogg: Great!

Mr. Barrett: Excellent! We’ll look forward to that.

Mr. Karam: I’m not translating it, though. Somebody from Australia who works in— He does translations. He volunteered to translate it, so he’s translating it for us. So it’s not done. It was supposed to be done at the end of March, but until now I haven’t heard anything, so hopefully it’s going to be done soon, before July.

Ms. Hogg: I believe that the Department of Liturgics was working on some new translations for some of our services. I thought they were supposed to come out a year or more ago. Do you know what’s happening with those?

Mr. Karam: I was aware only for the— about the resurrectional apolytikia and the kontakia. I mean, we submitted a few comments about the translation, so I think the committee is still reviewing those, but about the other translations I’m not sure what’s going on. But I heard that I think one book is going to be out soon, like the committee is dedicating most of their time just for that book, to get it out, but I’m not sure about the progress.

Yeah, we try to compose music for the new apolytikia and kontakia, but we are still waiting for our comments to be answered, just for metering purposes.

Mr. Barrett: Sure, sure.

Ms. Hogg: So can you explain— There’s kind of two ways to compose: the more analytical style and the more synoptic style. Can you explain kind of what those two approaches are and where your approach fits in?

Mr. Karam: Yes. So the classical style is— Maybe it’s easier to start with the analytical style. With the analytical style, as the music is written in a simple way and there are some symbols that, according to the oral tradition, you cannot just sing the way they are written. There’s some voice movement that is associated with them. So in the classical music, these voice movements are not written with the music, but in the analytical style all this movement—voice movement or ornamentation—is written down.

I was a big supporter of the analytical way, which means to write all these ornamentations, just because this is how I was used to [writing] the music back home. And the way they write it back home, this way, is because people are not aware of the oral tradition, and they are not aware of where they should apply this movement, like voice movement and ornamentation. So at least Joseph Yazbeck started writing this— the music analytically, so people can see or chanters who don’t know just sing it while they are singing the music. This is how— what I got used to. And then when I first got to the States, I wrote “Give me this Stranger” in the analytical way.

But there was some criticism about this, and I understand it; I respect it. And I’m convinced now, since people here are more knowledgeable about the oral tradition, that someone told me that probably it’s better to keep the music simple just in case— because there are many levels of chanters: there are some beginners, some at the medium level, and then some are at more advanced level. So it’s better to keep it simple and keep it up to the chanter to decide whether or when to do these ornamentations. That’s why I stopped writing analytically and now I write classically.

Mr. Barrett: Examples of sort of modern analytical scores would be those that are attributed to Stanitsas and Karamanis and so on, Pringos, definitely, as opposed to the classical editions of Petros and so on.

Mr. Karam: Correct. Pringos, yep.

Ms. Hogg: So if we were to look at “Give me this Stranger,” it would be much more analytical composition than one of your recent ones, is that right?

Mr. Karam: Correct. I would say that “Give me this Stranger” is the only analytical piece that I have written in English.

Mr. Barrett: Yeah, I’m looking at that right now, actually, and “Beholding”—that’s one spot that jumps out at me as a very analytical spot. The way I would be accustomed to seeing that move written out would be olígon with kentemata on top and pstifiston underneath, and you’ve got the olígon with olígon-kentema-gorgon and antikenoma.

Mr. Karam: Yep. And this is one of the ways to chant this combination. Yeah, so I was told, “Why do you want the chanter to just do whatever you think needs to be done? Why don’t you leave it up to them to decide which ornamentation to use or not? Just read it the way it is.” Which I understand, because with time I noticed that there are some chanters that cannot— they get scared from my music. I’ve heard that some people complained that my music is tough and hard to read. I personally don’t see it that way, but I’m not the judge; I shouldn’t be the judge. But I decided not to back up or write more simple music, because I think compromising is going to make the music lose a lot of its beauty. I would like to give each word what it deserves when it comes to painting or music… I write what I feel. I don’t back up; I decided not to compromise and to, whenever is possible, provide a recording of the piece. I did some recordings and now “Give me the Stranger” and the Kassiani hymn are on the list, because are one of the two biggest hymns that are challenging and people are facing some problem with as I knew recently. So hopefully I can do that sometime next week.

Ms. Hogg: Yeah. That’s great you’re providing recordings as much as you can. Have you also been teaching? I know the Archdiocese has been having some— a lot of different seminars and workshops. Have you been teaching at any of those?

Mr. Karam: Not really, no. My first participation at the SMI was last year, and it was only an interview like this, about my work, about when I started composition and stuff like that, but I did not give any kind of lesson to anyone, no. I did start here in Chicago when I first came, using the book that I used back home in Lebanon. I started with 25 people, and after a couple of weeks or probably a month, it went down to two. [Laughter]

Mr. Barrett: Yeah…

Mr. Karam: And those, they stopped coming to the class. Then I stopped and never tried again.

Mr. Barrett: I think we’ve all been to that class. [Laughter] I think we’ve all seen that. What are things that you’re working on right now for the future? What’s coming up for you? What are you looking forward to doing?

Mr. Karam: Yeah, I mean, as I just mentioned, I just finished the Pentecost, the whole service. I did the double canon last year. I know it’s not metered, but I think it’s easier to have music in front of you than just improvise, although it is not metered. This way at least the chanting will be cleaner. I’m waiting for St. Joseph of Damascus service to be done, to start working on this one. And that’s it for now, I think. Of course, there is a lot on my list. Now I’m currently studying to start working on papadic composition. I met with Gabriel probably a year ago.

Ms. Hogg: Gabriel Cremeens?

Mr. Karam: Uh-huh, and he talked to me about papadic composition. Then I met with Philip, I think a month ago.

Mr. Barrett: Philip Faras?

Mr. Karam: Uh-huh. So, yeah, I’m studying. People— My studies get interrupted a lot of times just because people ask for stuff and I devote this time to compose, but I should start working on this very soon.

Mr. Barrett: Are there any particular challenges that you feel like you run into, composing for English as opposed to Arabic?

Mr. Karam: Sometimes there are some words that I envision that they are pronounced a certain way, and then I go to Google, and hear how they are pronounced, and then when I run it by the committee, they tell me, “No, the accent should be there.” Like “omnipotent,” the word “omnipotent.” If you go to Google, it says, “Omnipotent,” and then I was told, “No, it’s omnipotent!” [Laughter]

Mr. Barrett: Badly done, Google! Badly done! [Laughter]

Mr. Karam: Yeah, it seems that there are— And somebody looked it up in the dictionary, and it seems there are two ways to pronounce this word. I mean, the accent of some words is one of the challenges. The other thing is the translation. I am limited to HTM or Nassar, and sometimes there are some mistakes in Nassar, like translation-wise. Sometimes I notice this mistake, I talk to the liturgical committee, they compare the Nassar’s text to the original Greek, and I tell them that this word doesn’t exist in Arabic or it’s different in Arabic, so we change the Nassar text sometimes, like we did for one… I think the third Sunday of Lent, if I am not mistaken. The Doxa for the Holy Fathers, there was one whole sentence that was missing and we had to add. Yeah, so mainly the translation is the most— is the biggest challenge that I face.

Ms. Hogg: Did you study Greek repertoire when you were back in Lebanon?

Mr. Karam: I didn’t.

Ms. Hogg: Okay.

Mr. Karam: I didn’t. I mean, back home, we don’t have a lot of resources that are available to us. Unless you work to find or to study such things, there’s no one or no formal school that teaches you this.

Mr. Barrett: Is Greek still used liturgically a fair amount in Lebanon or is it—?

Mr. Karam: No. I mean, there are some parishes where the priests studied in Greece, so sometimes they use— they chant something in Greek, especially if something repeats, like “Aghios o Theos” or the antiphons during the Liturgy. People are used to it, but sometimes I hear a lot of complaints. Back home I remember we used to do the anaphora phrygios mode, and people used to complain because we used to do it Greek and Arabic. Same for the great doxologies that Mitri el-Murr wrote, those elaborate ones: there is a sentence in Greek, the other sentence in Arabic. People used to complain because they didn’t understand what we were singing. We enjoyed it, but people complained; some people complained.

So if it’s something that doesn’t repeat, like “Christ is risen” or “Holy God, Holy Mighty” or the antiphons, other than that, no, we don’t use Greek. It’s like 100— Let’s say 100% Arabic, although they say that the main language in Lebanon, back in the days, was Greek. They call us “Greek Orthodox” in Lebanon, but we don’t speak or we don’t understand it; we don’t even understand it. Like, we understand a few words here and there, but we don’t speak it or use it in church.

Mr. Barrett: Sure. What kind of direction do you see the Antiochian Archdiocese moving in right now, musically? Because it certainly seems like there’s a lot of good energy behind Byzantine music in the Archdiocese right now, between yourself, Fr. John, Phillip Phares, Amy, and so on. I mean, it seems like there are a lot of good things happening. How do you see—? And then people like Charlie Marge who are still around. He has done a fair amount that I’ve seen to up his game in the last few years. He’s learned Byzantine notation and seems to be pushing himself to do more along those lines. So it seems like there’s a lot of good stuff coming out of the Antiochian Archdiocese right now. Where do you see all that pointing to? What do you see happening?

Mr. Karam: I see that there is a good future for Byzantine music, and Charlie is with us on the committee now, and he provides his feedback all the time. I think that we are going in a direction where Byzantine music is going to flourish, I think, in the Antiochian Archdiocese. I mean, it’s not only us that are composing music; there are other people who are providing music, and we review it and we give feedback. There is one in Canada who came from Lebanon who also sometimes provides us with music. I think that for now the Kazan music is staying at least for the near future, just because there are some people that are very used to it and they don’t want to let go.

Mr. Barrett: Sure.

Mr. Karam: But slowly I think most of the main services are going to be composed in Byzantine music, like good Byzantine music. So we’ll see what the future holds, but we’re going to keep working, and hopefully we’re going to have more people on board to compose more music and make this art flourish in our Church. We’ll see.

Ms. Hogg: That’s the end of Part Two of our interview with Chadi Karam. Join us next time for the last segment of our interview with him.