The Pursuit of Beauty with Matthew Wilkinson

Herman Middleton joins me to discuss Orthodox Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the modern crisis of what it means to be human, Artificial Intelligcen, and the strange ways technology reshapes our souls, our communities, and even our understanding of salvation. Herman is the founder of The Protecting Veil and Gadfly Academy, and his work brings together Orthodox theology, patristic wisdom, media ecology,...

Armenian chant, Armenian church music, and the ancient sacred music of the Armenian Apostolic Church are at the center of this conversation with master singer and musicologist, Aram Kerovpyan, one of the world’s leading voices on Armenian liturgical chant. Recommended to me by Tigran Hamasyan, Aram speaks with rare honesty about the survival, decline, and possible renewal of Armenian sacred music,...

In this conversation, I speak with artist Daniel Mitsui about sacred art, medieval manuscripts, Gothic symbolism, calligraphy, typography, Japanese woodblock prints, relics, pilgrimage, and the lost visual imagination of Christian civilization. Mitsui is a professional artist known for extraordinarily detailed religious ink drawings that continue the traditions of medieval Gothic art while also dr...

What happens when a meal becomes something sacred? In this conversation, Matthew Wilkinson sits down with John Heers of First Things Foundation to explore the ancient Georgian tradition of the Supra: a feast built around wine, poetry, hospitality, storytelling, beauty, memory, and human communion. What begins as a discussion about Georgian culture slowly becomes something much deeper: a meditation...

Deacon Mihret Melaku is an Ethiopian Orthodox deacon, host of the Burning Bush Podcast, and author of Defending the Ancient Faith. In this conversation we explore the full breadth of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity — its theology, its extraordinary sacred music system, its deep roots in Second Temple Judaism, and its living traditions of liturgical poetry. Burning Bush podcast: https://www.youtube...

Matthew Wilkinson sits down with Bishop Maximus of Pelagonia and musicologist Evgeny Skurat to discuss one of the most extraordinary sacred music projects in recent memory: a full reconstruction and live recording of the medieval Byzantine Divine Liturgy, filmed at the Hermitage of St. Ignatius in Santa Cruz Naranjo, Guatemala. Drawing on years of manuscript research and decipherment of Middle Byz...

Armenian jazz piano legend  @TigranHamasyan  joins Matthew Wilkinson on Pursuit of Beauty for a rare, in-depth conversation at the intersection of jazz, Armenian sacred music, medieval polyphony, and the theology of musical beauty. This is not a typical jazz interview, it goes deep into the musical, spiritual, and cultural roots that have shaped one of the most original voices in contemporary musi...

Dr. Alexander Lingas — musicologist, conductor, and Founding Director of Capella Romana — joins Matthew Wilkinson for one of the most wide-ranging conversations in the history of the Pursuit of Beauty podcast. From reconstructing the lost sounds of Hagia Sophia to conducting Byzantine chant at King Charles III's coronation, Lingas has spent 35 years at the intersection of sacred music scholars...

Neil's links:  @dirtpoorrobins  https://www.dirtpoorrobins.com/In this episode of The Pursuit of Beauty Podcast, Matthew Wilkinson speaks with musician and rock star Neil Basil DeGraide of Dirt Poor Robins about faith, music, culture, and the search for truth in the modern world. Neil shares the story of his journey from Catholicism through Protestant and charismatic churches and eventually in...

Dr. William Renwick joins the podcast to discuss Sarum chant, the medieval English plainchant tradition centered on Salisbury Cathedral that once dominated worship across most of England, Scotland, parts of Ireland, and even Northern France. William is a retired music theory professor from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and has devoted the latter part of his career to transcribing, editin...

Why do some coptic icons look cartoonish? Makary argues that the loss of apprenticeship, the absence of formal art education, and the pressure of rapid church construction have weakened artistic formation. Iconography is not a matter of copying lines and colors, but of understanding composition, light, volume, and the relationship between the image, the viewer, and the liturgical space. Sacred art...

In this conversation, I sit down with Aidan Hart, an internationally renowned iconographer, liturgical artist, and multiple-time artist commissioned by King Charles III, to explore the meaning of sacred art in the modern world. We discuss what iconography really is, why hierarchy does not mean domination but the transmission of grace, and how the architecture of East and West reveals radically dif...

Modern music, classical music, avant-garde, tonality, postmodernism, and music philosophy are at the center of this conversation between composer and analyst Samuel Andreyev and host Matthew Wilkinson. Together, they examine one of the most common stories we are told about modern music and ask whether it is actually true. A central claim explored here is that tonality never disappeared. While figu...

In this episode, I’m joined by philosopher and systems thinker Jordan Hall for a wide-ranging conversation about AI, music, and the future of human creativity. As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes how music is made and distributed, a deeper question emerges: does it matter whether art is human-made? And if it does, how would we even know? Jordan proposes that we are entering a moment where...

This is Part Two of my conversation with Dr. John Wykoff, composer and scholar. We continue a wide-ranging discussion on beauty, worship, church music, and the long-term consequences of losing aesthetic seriousness in the life of the church. Dr. Wykoff reflects on how churches came to measure success through efficiency, attendance, and growth, and why those metrics often displace formation, meanin...

Bruno de Labriolle (Ecole Gregorienne) joins Matthew Wilkinson on the Pursuit of Beauty Podcast to discuss the true history of Gregorian chant, the folk method of singing, ornamentation, relationship with Byzantium and Orthodoxy, singing with drones and instruments, and more. Bruno traces the “Gregorian chant” narrative to roughly around the year 750, when Pippin the Short seeks legitimacy and pow...

This week on The Pursuit of Beauty I sit down with Dr. Allen Hightower, Director of Choral Studies at the University of North Texas, for an honest and deeply pastoral conversation about choirs, faith, and the people who stand in front of us every week and sing. We talk very candidly about the real problems choir directors and church musicians face: how to work with aging voices and the infamous “o...

In this wide-ranging round table, architect Andrew Gould, icon carver and storyteller Jonathan Pageau, and host Matthew Wilkinson sit down over whiskey to wrestle with the future of beauty, sacred art, and architecture. We start with pirates and sea shanties, then quickly slide into Jackson Pollock, Rothko, oil slicks, marbled end-papers, and the problem of modern art hung in the wrong place. Andr...

n this episode of The Pursuit of Beauty , Matthew sits down with legendary Charleston vocalist and storyteller Ann Caldwell to uncover the hidden world of spirituals , Gullah culture , and the music of the enslaved. From “Wade in the Water” to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” Ann explains how these songs often carried coded messages of escape , using biblical language, river imagery, and “chariots” to...

In this long-form conversation, I sit down with Father Amde Hamilton, co-founder of The Watts Prophets, pioneering spoken word artist, and Ethiopian Orthodox priest. He tells the story of how a Creole childhood that intentionally formed poets and priests prepared him for militant poetry, the civil rights era, and what would later be recognized as some of the earliest roots of rap and hip hop. Fath...

Gratitude: I must express a sense real gratitude for David Bentley Hart coming onto the podcast. His books have indeed changed my life. The Atheist Delusions settled so many historical and theological questions that would constantly nag at my faith, and the Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, that truly saved my faith. After reading that book, Atheism seemed so philosophically inept th...

“If I were the devil, I’d start by destroying beauty.”Composer Dr. John Wykoff joins Matthew Wilkinson on The Pursuit of Beauty Podcast for a rare, soul-stirring conversation about what beauty really is, why it matters, and how its loss is reshaping our civilization. In this wide-ranging dialogue, the two explore the deep relationship between aesthetics, ethics, and faith—and how recovering a sens...

In this in-depth conversation, Father Pimen Simon of the Old Rite Church of the Nativity of Christ in Erie, Pennsylvania, joins Matthew Wilkinson to discuss the history, theology, and music of the Old Believers within the Russian Orthodox tradition. He explains how the Old Rite preserved ancient liturgical forms, theology, and chant after Patriarch Nikon’s 17th-century reforms divided the Russian...

What happened to beauty in architecture? In this episode of The Pursuit of Beauty , host Matthew Wilkinson sits down with Michael Diamant , founder of The Architectural Uprising and creator of the Facebook group New Traditional Architecture , to explore how we lost our connection to form, harmony, and meaning in the modern world. From the sterile glass towers of contemporary cities to the rediscov...

In this episode of The Pursuit of Beauty Podcast , host Matthew Wilkinson sits down with thinker and entrepreneur Jordan Hall for a wide-ranging conversation about beauty, truth, goodness, and the challenges of modern civilization . Hall, co-founder of mp3.com and a key figure in the early internet streaming revolution, brings his unique background in technology, philosophy, and faith to a dialogu...