The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos became famous outside of religiouscircles in the mid-'90s when a recording of their liturgical Gregorian chants unexpectedlyclimbed to the top of U.S. pop charts. Back around the 11th century, the Spanish abbeybegan switching over from Hispanic liturgical melodies to the Roman liturgy's Gregorianmelodies. The Gregorian chant has been used in Benedictine churches since, with theexception of a few decades in the 1800s. The Seminary of Logroño (also in Spain) invitedthe monks of Santo Domingo De Silos to record the Gregorian chants to help spread themusic within the parishes. Surprisingly, the music was picked up by a much largeraudience. In early 1994, the debut recording by the Benedictine Monks of Santo DomingoDe Silos, Chant (on the Angel label), became a huge commercial success, reaching theTop 5 of the U.S. Pop charts and garnering media attention in the form of not only musicreviews, but also interviews on television shows including the Tonight Show and GoodMorning America. The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos have releasedseveral more albums of their monodic chants since Chant, including Chant 2 and Chant3, 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 asChant Noel (Angel,1994).~ Joslyn Layne