Ivan Moody

Composer and conductor Ivan Moody was active in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and much of his choral music was associated with that church. He was also a musicologist and educator. Moody was born in London on June 11, 1964. He attended the University of London, studying composition, and went on for a doctorate at York University. He also studied privately with John Tavener and took courses in Eastern Orthodox theology at Finland's University of Joensuu. He was a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church and served as a protopresbyter (a supervising priest) in that organization. Moody began to gain attention as a composer in the 1980s, and one of his first major works, Canticum Canticorum I (written for The Hilliard Ensemble), found immediate success and remains one of his most popular compositions. In 1990, Moody's Prayer for the Forests won the Arts for the Earth Festival Prize and was later premiered by the Tapiola Choir in Finland. In 1992, Moody's oratorio Passion and Resurrection had its premiere at the Tampere Festival in Finland with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and director Tõnu Kaljuste. Many of Moody's compositions have been associated with the Orthodox church, but not all. He wrote concertos for double bass, piano, bass clarinet, and bassoon, although he wrote few or no purely orchestral works. Moody's 2008 Ossetian Requiem was written for Amsterdam's Conjunto Ibérico, a cello octet. Among the major ensembles that commissioned works from Moody were The King's Singers, for which he composed Canti della Rosa in 2008. Moody was frequently active as a conductor, leading mostly sacred music-oriented groups such as Cappella Romana in the U.S., the Choir of the Cathedral of St. George in Novi Sad, Serbia, and the Kastalsky Chamber Choir in Britain. His musicological interests included several topics related to the Orthodox church as well as music of Eastern Europe and music and spirituality more generally. Moody taught at the Academia de Artes e Tecnologias, Lisbon, and the University of Eastern Finland. Moody was prolific, issuing four new compositions in 2023, the last year of his life. He died on January 18, 2024. By that time, recordings of some 25 of his works were available.
© James Manheim /TiVo