Andon Shahpaski Festival of Eastern Church Chant

In honour of

Andon Shahpaski

† 1928 · Smojmirovo, Maleševo

Andon Shahpaski was a psalt (cantor) at the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Smojmirovo, in the Maleševo region, and also worked as a tailor and village teacher. He ran a school for psalts and a choir in the village, which carried on under his son Aralampie after Andon’s death in 1928. His pupils went on singing chant of the Slavonic-Byzantine tradition in the village church until almost the end of the 20th century.

A handwritten collection of church chants attributed to him, in Church Slavonic and Chrysanthine notation and dated to 1882–⁠1884, was kept by the family, who made it available to the musicologist Jane Kodjabashia in 2003. Kodjabashia also gathered what is known of his life, mainly from the memories of his descendants and fellow villagers. From this and other manuscripts in his collection he prepared the editions Kratok voskresnik (Short Book of Resurrection Hymns, 2004), Liturgiski zbornik (Liturgical Chants Collection, 2006) and Psaltika (2013), and in 2016 the Kratok voskresnik was also published in a transcription into staff notation by Mirjana Pavlovska-Shulajkovska. From 2014 a summer school of Byzantine-tradition church chant bearing his name was held in Smojmirovo and Berovo.

The festival bears his name because Andon Shahpaski came from Maleševo, a region that today lies within the Diocese of Strumica.