The Imaginary Song Hunt

Lotos Lab

Gather every Wednesday to rummage through music history’s wondrous, mystical, and neglected corners, unearthing forgotten stories, strange texts, and enchanted fragments of song with Stef Conner. The Imaginary Song Hunt is a monthly adventure into the lost, half-remembered, and beautifully mysterious corners of music history. Much of the music we explore survives only in fragments – cryptic manuscripts, patchy evidence, inherited traditions, and folklore. We often can’t know exactly how the old songs sounded… but it’s great fun to make an educated, imaginative guess. That’s what the Hunt is all about: using real historical clues to spark creative reconstructions, new performances, and playful musical detective work. Each month unfolds across four or five Wednesday sessions: Week 1 – Main Episode (YouTube & Podcast): Interviews with experts, manuscript deep-dives, and my own attempts at wrestling ancient evidence into fresh musical ideas. Week 2 – Bonus Content: Extra context, clues, translations, commentary, and behind-the-scenes materials to help fellow Song Hunters on their own creative paths. Week 3 – Live Zoom Singing Session: Open to all voices, no experience required. Learn by doing, and feel ancient song in your body through guided communal singing. Week 4 – New Creative Release: A music video or brand-new piece inspired by the month’s mystery. Bonus Weeks – When there's a 5th Wednesday Extra goodies: mini episodes, medieval weirdness, manuscript surprises. Something different every time. Along the way, Song Hunters encounter: mystical incantations, strange notations, beautiful manuscripts, ancient instruments, tragic ballads, songs for forgotten saints, tavern tunes, musical riddles, heart-piercing laments, creepy curses, and wonderfully odd modern songs with ancient or folk twists. Our explorations are rooted in evidence, but always leave space for imagination, intuition, and delight. If you love singing, stories, folklore, history, ancient magic, ritual, creative experimentation, or the joy of making something new from something old, this is absolutely for you!

Episodes

  1. Jul 1

    How Did Christians Sing 1,700 Years Ago? – with Stefan Hagel and Anastasios Vasilopoulos (ISH 5, July 2026)

    The Imaginary Song Hunt, Episode 5, July 2026 This episode of Imaginary Song Hunt is on the trail of the amazing but very fragmentary papyrus containing the oldest Christian hymn for which a melody survives. We chatted with Stefan Hagel (Austrian Academy of Sciences), to try to get to grips with the historical evidence and interpretation of the ancient text, and to Anastasios Vasilopoulos (a Greek Orthodox cantor), to find out more about one of the hymn's living performances... and to hear him demonstrate a Modern Greek version, as interpreted by the Greek Byzantine Choir. You'll hear two very different versions of the hymn in the episode – Stefan's rendition for voice and kithara, with reconstructed period pronunciation, including only the parts of the papyrus that can be confidently read/restored, and the Greek Byzantine Choir's Modern interpretation, which includes Egert Pölmann's (1970) supplementary text, filling in the holes on the manuscript. Both include a little imagination, but the latter considerably more than the former. Because both our guests had so much wonderful insight to share (and because July has 5 Wednesdays this year), we're releasing a second episode on 29th July, delving deeper into the rhythm of the hymn and exploring parallels with other ancient Christian songs. In this episode, you'll hear Barnaby and Stef attempting to sing the ison (drone) for Anastasios, while he sings the Cherubikon – another beautiful ancient hymn with some compelling thematic parallels. Join us! See below for the sources consulted and mentioned: - Pöhlmann, Egert. Denkmäler altgriechischer Musik: Sammlung, Übertragung und Erläuterung aller Fragmente und Fälschungen. Erlanger Beiträge zur Sprach- und Kunstwissenschaft 31. Nürnberg: Hans Carl, 1970. - Charles H. Cosgrove. An Ancient Christian Hymn with Musical Notation: Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1786: Text and Commentary. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 65. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011, 37. 🎧 The Imaginary Song Hunt is a series about reimagining lost songs from history, using evidence, creativity, and a willingness to step beyond what’s written down. 👉 Follow the hunt on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lotos-lab?sub_confirmation=1 or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aFzqumrVPAqLeSMU7b68k?si=ab002adfb70e4f8b or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-imaginary-song-hunt/id1889937980 or Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/053de0d8-1daf-4bb7-b0a1-e95d61c53135/the-imaginary-song-hunt?ref=dm_sh_IDCz6Kic0NaHH9KAPacKXQsFQ For everything Imaginary Song Hunt – including side trails, bonus performances and Stef’s Zoom choir – join the Lotos Lab Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lotos_Lab 👯‍♀️ For all the news and updates sign up for the Imaginary Song Hunt mailing list: https://song.stefconner.com/sign-up-imaginary-song-hunt 💝 Show your appreciation via the Lotos Lab Tip Jar: https://lotos-lab.com/donate/ Next full episode (29th July 2026): Stef and Barnaby explore ancient texts related to the earliest Christian hymn... and have a go at Byzantine chant!

    38 min
  2. Apr 22

    Forging Charlemagne's Songbook – with James Freeman (ISH 2, April 2026)

    In this episode of Imaginary Song Hunt, we continue our search for a lost songbook from the court of Charlemagne. Medievalist and codicologist James Freeman joins us to explore a deceptively simple question: if this legendary book of barbara et antiquissima carmina (“ancient vernacular songs”) once existed, what would it actually take to reconstruct – or even convincingly fake – it? Shifting focus from sound to source, we dig into the material realities of manuscripts: how they were made, how they survive, and what makes them believable as historical objects. From parchment and ink to scribal hand, this episode asks: how close you could get to producing a manuscript that might actually fool an expert? 🎧 The Imaginary Song Hunt is a series about reimagining lost songs from history, using evidence, creativity, and a willingness to step beyond what’s written down. 👉 Follow the hunt on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lotos-lab?sub_confirmation=1 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aFzqumrVPAqLeSMU7b68k?si=ab002adfb70e4f8b  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-imaginary-song-hunt/id1889937980 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/053de0d8-1daf-4bb7-b0a1-e95d61c53135/the-imaginary-song-hunt?ref=dm_sh_IDCz6Kic0NaHH9KAPacKXQsFQ 👯‍♀️ To join the Patreon, when it launches on 1st May, sign up for the Imaginary Song Hunt mailing list: https://song.stefconner.com/sign-up-imaginary-song-hunt 💝 Lotos Lab Tip Jar: https://lotos-lab.com/donate/ Next full episode (6th May 2026): we introduce Canntaireachd, a technique of chanting "vocables" to sing instrumental melodies, associated with bagpipe music.

    1h 5m

About

Gather every Wednesday to rummage through music history’s wondrous, mystical, and neglected corners, unearthing forgotten stories, strange texts, and enchanted fragments of song with Stef Conner. The Imaginary Song Hunt is a monthly adventure into the lost, half-remembered, and beautifully mysterious corners of music history. Much of the music we explore survives only in fragments – cryptic manuscripts, patchy evidence, inherited traditions, and folklore. We often can’t know exactly how the old songs sounded… but it’s great fun to make an educated, imaginative guess. That’s what the Hunt is all about: using real historical clues to spark creative reconstructions, new performances, and playful musical detective work. Each month unfolds across four or five Wednesday sessions: Week 1 – Main Episode (YouTube & Podcast): Interviews with experts, manuscript deep-dives, and my own attempts at wrestling ancient evidence into fresh musical ideas. Week 2 – Bonus Content: Extra context, clues, translations, commentary, and behind-the-scenes materials to help fellow Song Hunters on their own creative paths. Week 3 – Live Zoom Singing Session: Open to all voices, no experience required. Learn by doing, and feel ancient song in your body through guided communal singing. Week 4 – New Creative Release: A music video or brand-new piece inspired by the month’s mystery. Bonus Weeks – When there's a 5th Wednesday Extra goodies: mini episodes, medieval weirdness, manuscript surprises. Something different every time. Along the way, Song Hunters encounter: mystical incantations, strange notations, beautiful manuscripts, ancient instruments, tragic ballads, songs for forgotten saints, tavern tunes, musical riddles, heart-piercing laments, creepy curses, and wonderfully odd modern songs with ancient or folk twists. Our explorations are rooted in evidence, but always leave space for imagination, intuition, and delight. If you love singing, stories, folklore, history, ancient magic, ritual, creative experimentation, or the joy of making something new from something old, this is absolutely for you!