Traces of ison and biphonies in Byzantine chant of Sicilian Arbëresh

Abstract

After an introduction on the relevance of the written musical source in the Byzantine tradition of the Arbëresh minority in Sicily, the paper focuses on a small group of them containing multipart musics, mainly ison and biphonies. The paper explores, mostly, the performative aspects of these sources in the contemporary religious practices, and their symbolic relevance as part of a very specific musical and cultural identity.