Mor Aphrem Center, Paramus, NJ, March 29, 2018—The Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese for the Eastern United States, under the auspices of His Eminence Mor Dionysius John Kawak, is pleased to release version 1.0 of the Beth Gazo Portal app for mobile devices. The app is available through Apple’s App Store and through Google Play.
The Beth Gazo is the primary reference to West Syriac liturgical music. The app gives the text in Syriac and the corresponding audio recordings. For those who cannot read the Syriac script, the text is also presented in Garshuni (Latin or Arabic script) which can be chosen from the app’s Settings page.
The app already has recordings from various regional schools of music including Mardin, Kharput, Edessa and Sadad and contains, as of today, about 3,000 recordings by 11 chanters. We plan to add more schools and recordings in the near future.
While the most circulated recording today is that of the late Patriarch Jacob III, this project has uncovered dozens of melodies that were presumed lost. These presumed-lost melodies came from recordings by the late Chorepiscopos Abdulnur Samuel of our beloved Archdiocese (Kharput tradition), the Mor Gabriel Monastery Boys Choir (Tur Abdin tradition), Fr. Yusuf Özmen (Mardin tradition), and Archdeacon Abdulghani Boulos and Fr. Adday Thoma (Edessa/Urfa tradition). The recordings of Fr. Alan Shaltan of our beloved Archdiocese gives the modern traditions of Ma’arrat Saydnaya. We are in the process of adding the Sadad tradition. Those who have other recordings are encouraged to contact us as we would like to be as inclusive as possible.
This project was carried out in collaboration with Beth Mardutho (The Syriac Institute) in Piscataway, NJ. The App design and architecture was done by Malphono George A. Kiraz in collaboration with Dr. Thomas Joseph. Data, both text and audio, were populated by a team of excited young people including Imad Syryany (text proofing), Muhannad Maher and Tony Wardeh (audio file segmentation), Chris Karim (audio file management), Samer Jazrawy (audio mixing and mastering for Patr. Jacob III files) and Dayroyo Antonius Gharib (proofing of additional texts). Many others helped in obtaining audio files and commenting on earlier Beta releases through social media.
The Archdiocese will be holding a launch celebration on Friday, March 30 at 7 PM at the Mor Ephrem Center, Paramus, NJ. All are welcome to attend.
Sponsorship has been made possible by Mor Dionysius John Kawak
in memory of his beloved parents, Mr. & Mrs. Aziz and Adal Kawak.
To download for Android :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bethmardutho.bathgazo
To download for iOS (iPhone + iPad):
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beth-gazo-portal/id1349667529?ls=1&mt=8
