Welcome to the Matheson Trust Sacred Audio Collection. This section of our website contains a unique selection of live recordings from the world’s major religious traditions: prayers, hymns and scriptural recitations from all corners of the world, performed as they have been for thousands of years, mostly in their original ancient languages. The selection here tries to show not only the various moods, rhythms and harmonies found across the different religions, but also those found within each particular tradition.

You will only find here authentic performances, mostly from monastic communities or temples, and occasionally from lay faithful in their devotional life. This means that in most cases the audio quality will be far from any studio recording standard, featuring noises pertaining to natural settings or congregational worship. We have in all cases tried to keep the sound editing to a minimum.

We are grateful to the many institutions and individuals whose contributions make this collection possible, and we try to acknowledge every one of them in their respective pages. However, if you see any wrong attribution or if you can help us fill in any missing details, we would be most grateful if you could contact us.

Copyright note: Most of these recordings are in the public domain, and can usually be redistributed on a non-commercial, attribution basis, but others are only published here through agreements with their sources. In order to keep clear of any rights infringement, we suggest you contact us prior to any eventual re-distribution of the recordings in this collection, and we shall try to advice accordingly.