Byzantine Musicologist Milos Velimirovic falls asleep in the Lord

19 April 2008: Bridgewater, Virginia, USA. The eminent Byzantine Musicologist Milos Velimirovic fell asleep in the Lord unexpectedly, as relayed by Mish’s step-daughter’s husband, Carl Bowman.

Born on 10 December 1922 in Belgrade, Serbia, he graduated from the University of Belgrade, as well as the music academy. In 1957 he received his PhD from Harvard University, studying with Gombosi and Piston, and working with another well-known Byzantine Musicologist, Egon Wellesz. Before retiring in 1993, he taught at Yale (1957-69), was appointed professor of music at the University of Wisconsin (1969-73) and the University of Virginia in 1973. In 1985 he received a Fulbright fellowship to teach in Yugoslavia. On 18 October 2004 he received an honorary doctorate from the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, Greece, with Kenneth Levy.

His research in the Byzantine and Slavic area concentrated on the Slavonic chant and he was editor of Collegium musicum and Studies in Eastern Chant. His monograph, Byzantine Elements in Early Slavic Chant, was published in the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae (Vol. IV: Pars Principalis, 1960).

Condolences and memories can be sent here.

His warmness and dedicated, research was exemplary and will be sorely missed. May his memory be eternal.

A Select Bibliography

• Byzantine Elements in Early Slavic Chant (diss., Harvard U., 1957; enlarged, MMB, Subsidia, iv, 1960) ‘Russian Autographs at Harvard’, Notes, xvii (1959–60), 539–58
• ‘Liturgical Drama in Byzantium and Russia’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, xvi (1962), 351–85
• ‘Recent Soviet Articles on Music Theory’, JMT, vi (1962), 283–93
• ‘Joakeim Monk of the Harsianites Monastery and Domestikos of Serbia’, Zbornik radova Vizantološkog Instituta recueil de travaux de l’Institut d’études byzantines, viii (1963–4), 451–8
• ‘Study of Byzantine Music in the West’, Balkan Studies, v (1964), 63–76
• ‘The Influence of the Byzantine Chant on the Music of the Slavic Countries’, Byzantine Studies XIII: Oxford 1966, 119–40
• ‘Two Composers of Byzantine Music: John Vatatzes and John Laskaris’, Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, ed. J. LaRue and others (New York, 1966/R), 818–31
• ‘Unknown Stichera for the Feast of St. Athanasios of Mount Athos’, Studies in Eastern Chant, i (London, 1966), 108–29
• with D. Stefanović, ‘Peter Lampadarios and Metropolitan Serafim’, ibid., 67–88
• ‘Cristoforo Ivanovich from Budva: the first Historian of the Venetian Opera’, Zvuk, nos.77–8 (1967), 135–45
• ‘Musique byzantine’, Encyclopédie des musiques sacrées, ed. J. Porte, ii (Paris, 1969), 145–64
• ‘The Musical Works of Theoleptos, Metropolitan of Philadelphia’, Studies in Eastern Chant, ii (London, 1971), 155–65
• ‘Present Status of Research in Byzantine Music’, AcM, xliii (1971), 1–20
• ‘The “Bulgarian” Musical Pieces in Byzantine Musical Manuscripts’, IMSCR XI: Copenhagen 1972, 790–96
• ‘The Present Status of Research in Slavic Chant’, AcM, xliv (1972), 235–65
• ‘The Byzantine Heirmos and Heirmologion’, Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade, ed. W. Arlt and others (Berne, 1973), 192–244
• ‘Egon Wellesz and the Study of Byzantine Chant’, MQ, lxii (1976), 265–77
• ‘Belgrade as Subject of Musical Compositions’, MZ, xvii (1981), 147–64
• ‘Beginnings of National Music Cultures Among the Southern Slavs’, Serbian Studies, ii (1982–3), 61–70
• ‘Stevan Mokranjac’, Landmarks in Serbian Culture and History, ed. V.D. Mihailovich (Pittsburgh, 1983), 208–21
• ‘The Melodies of the Ninth-Century Kanon for St. Demetrius’, Russian and Soviet Music: Essays for Borsi Schwarz, ed. M.H. Brown (Ann Arbor, 1984), 9–34
• ‘A Papadike in the Hilandar Ms. 703/ii’, Dzielo Muzyczne: Teoria, Historia, Interpretacja, ed. I. Poniatowska (Kraków, 1984), 31–8
• ‘Some Letters of Pavel Chesnokov in the United States’, Slavonic and Western Music: Essays for Gerald Abraham, ed. M.H. Brown and R.J. Wiley (Oxford, 1985), 254–69
• ‘Russian Musicians Outside Russia in the Twentieth Century’, MMA, xii (1987), 234–43
• ‘Christian Chant in Syria, Armenia, Egypt, and Ethiopa’, ‘Byzantine Chant’, NOHM, ii (2/1990), 3–22, 26–48
• ‘Byzantine Musical Traditions Among the Slavs’, The Byzantine Tradition After the Fall of Constantinople, ed. J.J. Yiannis (Charlottesville, VA, 1991), 95–105
• ed., with W. Brumfield, Christianity and the Arts in Russia (Cambridge, 1991)
• ‘Warsaw, Moscow and St. Petersburg’, The Late Baroque Era: from the 1680s to 1740, ed. G. Buelow (Basingstoke, 1993), 436–65
• ‘History of Art Music in Serbia’, Serbian Studies, ix (1995), 80–87; x (1996), 42–58