Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos

The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos became famous outside of religious circles in the mid-'90s when a recording of their liturgical Gregorian chants unexpectedly climbed to the top of U.S. pop charts. Back around the 11th century, the Spanish abbey began switching over from Hispanic liturgical melodies to the Roman liturgy's Gregorian melodies. The Gregorian chant has been used in Benedictine churches since, with the exception of a few decades in the 1800s. The Seminary of Logroño (also in Spain) invited the monks of Santo Domingo De Silos to record the Gregorian chants to help spread the music within the parishes. Surprisingly, the music was picked up by a much larger audience. In early 1994, the debut recording by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos, Chant (on the Angel label), became a huge commercial success, reaching the Top 5 of the U.S. Pop charts and garnering media attention in the form of not only music reviews, but also interviews on television shows including the Tonight Show and Good Morning America. The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos have released several more albums of their monodic chants since Chant, including Chant 2 and Chant 3, also on Angel, Soul of Chant (Milan, 1995), Gregorian Chants (Music Club, 1996), Gregorian Book of Silos (Milan, 2000) and a few Christmas-oriented releases such as Chant Noel (Angel, 1994). ~ Joslyn Layne