Midwest Mahjar: The Recorded Sounds of the Arabic-Speaking Diaspora in the United States at 78 RPM

  Returning to Our Beginnings: The Sounds of Cleveland’s Saint Elias Melkite Church Choir At Midwest Mahjar, we have featured a host of Antiochian Orthodox, Maronite, and Melkite priests and choirs who recorded on shellac and vinyl. There have been orthodox priests Rev. Agapios Golam , Metropolitans Germanos Shahadi , Illyas T. Kurban , and Samuel David , the pioneering Maronite priests George Aziz , Fr. Pedro Kahwagi , and Rev. Paul Hage . In the Melkite tradition, our second post ever, we focused on the life and recordings of Rev. Anton Aneed . Audio recordings of church choirs, especially in the 78 rpm era, have been few and far between. Toledo’s Saint Elias Syrian Orthodox Choral Society represents the sole church choir to release an early three-disc set of recorded hymns. Ironically, this historic album also features a Lebanese-Syrian choir from Ohio. This time, it’s the Saint Elias Melkite Church Choir in Cleveland, Ohio, however the medium is 33 1/3 vinyl.  As we noted...