Syriac Chant

Syriac chant is the liturgical song of the Syriac Christian churches, sung in the Syriac language to texts drawn from the Bible and from early hymnographers such as *Ephrem the Syrian*. Its melodies are preserved in the Beth Gazo, the treasury of chant organized into eight modes, and are performed unaccompanied by priests, deacons and choirs in modal, largely syllabic lines with melismatic flourishes on important feasts. Regional schools at Edessa, Mardin, Kharput and Tur Abdin, and the diaspora church in Kerala, each maintain distinct melodic dialects of the same ancient repertory.