James Chater - Compositions

Compositions

From the 1990s James Chater has also been active as a composer. The focus of his activities in this field has been the composing and arranging of choral works for liturgical use within the Orthodox Church, of which he has been a member since 1995. Most of his liturgical works are written to texts in the English, Dutch and French languages, with a few other compositions in Church Slavonic. In a number of articles and conference papers (which have appeared in In Communion, The Messenger, the 2005 and 2007 Proceedings of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music (ISOCM) and Sourozh) he has addressed issues of liturgical music in the Orthodox parishes of countries that are not traditionally Orthodox. These topics include translation, the relationship between text and music, and striking the right balance between conservation and creativity. His works have been performed in Finland, Russia and Serbia.