How much do you know about Monks? I’ll take that assumed silence to mean that most of your knowledge is pulled from cartoons and other such caricatures. That’s okay, that’s how it is for me too. Luckily, HBO2 has an upcoming documentary (Top Ten Monks) about the Cistercian Monks.

Chant: Music For The Soul The Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz (Click on the image to be taken to the Amazon page.)

Remember this CD cover? Chant: The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos (Click the picture to be taken to the Amazon page.)

Whether or not you know it, you probably know a little something about Cistercian Monks already, as they are famous for their Gregorian chants. And learning about the Gregorian chants history is something worth dong.

Via press release:

They rise at 4:30 every morning. They pray more than six hours a day. They’ve devoted their lives to God. And they’re pop stars.

A small group of Cistercian monks in Austria made music history recently when their album of Gregorian chant climbed England’s pop charts, landing in the Top Ten for two months and selling more than a million copies worldwide. Directed by Dana Perry (HBO’s “Boy Interrupted”), the documentary TOP TEN MONKS takes an unprecedented look at the daily lives of these unlikely celebrities, who rarely allow cameras inside their walls…

Top Ten Monks airs on HBO 2 on Wednesday December 22nd at 8 pm et/pt. (The Gregorian Chant video under the jump is very peaceful and relaxing, give it a listen if you have a moment.)

More of the press release:

The story of the monks’ success began when Universal Music noticed an increase in back catalogue sales of Gregorian chant, and placed ads in notable Catholic newspapers searching for the most beautiful sacred voices. Father Karl of Stift Heiligenkreuz Abbey, a 12th-century monastery near Vienna, sent the company a link to a website and a YouTube video of the monks’ singing, which Tom Lewis, artist development manager at Universal, calls “some of the most beautiful Gregorian chant we heard.”

Sung in Latin, the official language of the Roman Catholic Church, Gregorian chant is composed in a free musical rhythm that rises and falls in accord with the inner meaning of each piece. The peaceful and otherworldly – to some ears “eerie” – tonality of Gregorian chant, and its free rhythm, make it the perfect musical form for unfolding the meaning of the sacred texts that are sung in it.

While a monk’s primary activity is prayer, which the monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz have engaged in for 900 years, TOP TEN MONKS dives deeply into their everyday lives, dispelling misconceptions about life in a monastery. Rather than a place of constriction and monotony, Stift Heiligenkreuz Abbey enables the monks to strive for lives that are open and calm, healthy and happy. These monks are fully engaged in the modern world, using technologies such as cell phones and the Internet, as well as running a number of businesses, including a gas station and a sawmill.

Their sudden celebrity finds them in the headlines and on TV, but the monks are not inspired by money or fame, believing that for many people, Gregorian chant are an escape from and an answer to the pressures of modern life. Father Karl explains, “The music not only calms, it also gives strength. It has an emotional dimension. It is joy and fear, praise and mourning, jubilation and thanksgiving.” He also believes that many people “find it interesting, cool and exotic when they see monks in long white robes, praying together and singing in Latin.”

Explaining the monks’ popularity, Tom Lewis says, “There’s a lot of people out there whose musical appetites aren’t necessarily being served by popular culture. And when something fresh comes along, the appetite for it is incredibly strong.”

Top Ten Monks is a Perry Films Production; produced and directed by Dana Perry; director of photography, Hart Perry; original score, Michael Bacon; senior editor, Jennifer McGarrity; editor, Alyse Ardell Spiegel. For HBO: senior producer, Nancy Abraham; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.

Top Ten Monks airs on December 22nd on HBO 2.  Other HBO2 playdates: Dec. 25 (6:30 p.m.) and Jan. 2 (8:00 a.m.), 7 (6:00 a.m.), 19 (9:00 p.m.), 22 (8:00 a.m.) and 31 (11:30 a.m.)

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