Anna Gerotheou Gallos, a prolific composer of Greek Orthodox Church music over a career that spanned eight decades, died at home on Feb. 4 of complications from the flu and Parkinson's disease. The Timonium resident was 94.
A strong, feisty woman, whose life was steeped in the Greek Orthodox Church — both her father and husband were priests — she became one of a handful of musicians to attempt to return the American church's music to its roots in the Byzantine church, according to a fellow musician Nicholas B. Kyrus of Washington, D.C.
When the first Greek immigrants settled in the U.S., they westernized their music as part of a process of assimilation, Kyrus said. Mrs. Gallos, along with other second generation Greeks, tried to take the church back to the earlier music by writing original arrangements of Byzantine melodies.
She harmonized traditional Byzantine melodies, Kyrus said. Her husband, Father George P. Gallos, would write the words. They wrote liturgies being sung in churches today.
What was remarkable, her family and friends said, was that she was able to do this while supporting her husband in his role as priest and attending to her duties as a mother. "Anna was doing things in the church musically that women didn't do traditionally," Kyrus said.
Each time her husband was transferred to a new church, she began planting the seeds of this old tradition. "They were in Rochester for 10 years, the musical tradition they have in that church is astounding," Kyrus said, adding that the music in churches in Annapolis, Baltimore and Spartanburg, S.C. was also deeply changed by her presence there.
"I would say she was very strong, especially the type of strength that shows with focus, resolve, and directness that was needed for a woman to succeed back when she started," said Stephen Gallos, her son.
"When it came to her music, she was very much of a perfectionist," he said. "Her art was her life."
She also was centered around her extended family, and she enjoyed cooking for them.
The daughter of a Greek Orthodox priest, Father John Gerotheou, and Presvytera Evangeline Gerotheou, Anna was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 12, 1920, the eldest of four girls.
Mrs. Gallos studied music in high school and by age 15 was conducting the choir at her father's church in Philadelphia. She began college at Boston University in 1940, but her studies were interrupted when she met Gallos, who had come for an event at her father's church in 1941. They were married the next year.
One of her husband's earliest assignments was to a church in Rochester, N.Y., which allowed her to go back to college. She earned a bachelor's degree in theory and voice from the Eastman School of Music in 1948. She went on to get her master's degree in church music, composing and conducting from Eastman in the early 1970s.
In 1954, they moved to Towson and then to Baltimore. In 1959, she was asked to become a substitute music teacher for a year at City College, which preceded a permanent job at Forest Park High School, where she worked as the choral music director until 1965.
The family then moved to a series of parishes in Weston, Mass., Spartanburg, S.C., Annapolis, and St. Augustine, Fla.
After the death of her husband in 1995, Mrs. Gallos moved to Timonium from St. Augustine and worked as the music director at St. Demetrios Church in Towson until 2004. She continued to write music, consult and mentor other musicians. Kyrus said her friends are now completing a liturgy she was working on shortly before her death.
She joined the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Baltimore and was active in the choir. "She enjoyed teaching the young people and always encouraged them to be part of the choir," said Father Dean Moralis at the Cathedral.
Mrs. Gallos was awarded the St. Romanos the Melodist Medallion for Exemplary Archdiocesan Service, the highest national honor given to a church musician by the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians. She also received the St. Paul Medal, the Archdiocese's highest honor for a lay person.
In addition to Stephen Gallos of Annapolis, she is survived by another son, John Gallos of Timonium, who cared for her in her later years, and a number of nieces and nephews.
A funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Cathedral of the Annunciation on 24 W. Preston St. in Baltimore. Mrs. Gallos' music will be sung at the church at 10:30 a.m.