The Mostly Orthros Festival began with the first of a series of lectures offered by Dr. Katy Romanou, Senior Visiting Scholar of the Onassis Foundation USA. It was Dr. Romanou who in 1972 first translated into English the Great Theory of Music by Chrysanthos of Madytos (1770 - 1846). Chrysanthos reformed the older Byzantine notation, making it simpler by reducing the number of interval and expression signs (neumes) to the most essential.

The lecture was followed by a Byzantine sacred music and Greek Folk music concert. The highlight of the evening was the delivery of the first copy of the book by Theodore Brakatselos, representing the Axion Estin Foundation, along with Nick Kyriakos, chairman of the Rev. Peter N. Kyriakos Endowment Fund, to Professor Stephen Blum, Director of the PhD program in Ethnomusicology of CUNY - Graduate Center.

The concert included notable Greek soloists Christos Chalkias and Eleftherios Eleftheriadis, U.S. violinst Elias Sarkar, and percussionist Ozan Aksoy, a GC doctoral candidate in music. For the finale, the school choir from St Nicholas William Spyropoulos School in Flushing, the largest Greek school in the U.S., joined the ensemble in two folk songs, reading the complex notation with astonishing ease—the school being the first in the U.S. to initiate a Byzantine component in its curriculum.

On the third day of the festival, a formal gala, subtitled "A Banquet Celebrating the Byzantine Arts," was jointly presented by the Axion Estin Foundation and The Rev. Peter N. Kyriakos Endowment at the Newington - Cropsey Foundation Gallery in Hastings - on - Hudson. Honored as one of the foremost authorities on Byzantine Art world - wide, Dr. Helen C. Evans, curator, author and educator, received the Axion Award of Excellence during an original event entitled "Creating Sacred Space." New York. Fox 5 News Meteorologist Nick Gregory, served as Master of Ceremonies for the event that also featured renowned speakers in Byzantine architecture, iconography and music. Master Chanters from Thessaloniki, Greece, performed for the audience and the newly published book, "Great Theory of Music" was dedicated to the late Very Rev. Peter N. Kyriakos. "You all who overfill this room stand as a commitment of your community to everyone knowing the greatness and culture of the Byzantine tradition,'' Dr. Evans said to the sold - out audience in attendance at the Newington - Cropsey Foundation Gallery, where the event was held.

This was the second festival of Byzantine music at the GC in three years. In 2008, the Greek Byzantine Choir flew in from Athens to perform in Elebash Recital Hall before fulfilling its engagement at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur.