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Cappella Romana, a Portland-based vocal ensemble specializing in early and contemporary sacred classical music, will perform at Grace Episcopal Church at 7 p.m. Friday.

Their concert is “A Ukrainian Wedding,” comprised of songs and chants for a traditional wedding ceremony in Ukraine, and will feature soloists Inna Kovtun and Hanna Tischchenko, who are both refugees from that country.

Annie Dolber saw the ensemble in Portland and proposed they perform in Astoria. “We don’t usually do concerts,” said Dolber, a member of Grace Episcopal Church, “but Cappella Romana sings in churches, and it’s going to be perfect in an intimate setting with a beautiful acoustic.”

Conducting will be the concert’s creator, Nadia Tarnawsky. Born to Ukrainian immigrants, Tarnawsky is an ethnomusicologist, folklorist and singer who has spent time gathering folk and sacred music in Ukraine.

“A Ukrainian Wedding” features music pieces that accompany the various stages and rituals of what is in Ukraine a multiday ceremony, including the arrival of the matchmakers, the engagement, making of the wedding bread, dressing of the bridal couple, parents’ blessings, the marriage ceremony and saying farewell to the bride.

“My idea was to have as much of the wedding process as we could have,” Tarnawsky said.

The concert’s extensive program describes each part of the wedding and the accompanying song and includes translated lyrics. It will close with a rendition of “Mnohaya lita,” a traditional Ukrainian celebratory song.

Tarnawsky writes in the program that she was entranced by the buoyancy of the piece and thought it would be an uplifting end to the concert.

Singing as principal soloists with the choir will be Kovtun and Tishchenko, who fled to the United States amid the Russia-Ukraine War.

“It’s unfortunate the war has placed them here,” Tarnawsky said. “But it’s fortunate for us that they are here to sing with us because they know Ukrainian folk music deeply, as members of their own ensembles in Ukraine. I don’t think this concert would be possible without them because they bring so much wealth to the music that’s being performed.”

The choir, which was founded in 1991 and whose makeup varies from project to project, specializes in Christian music, including liturgical sacred music from the Eastern Orthodox (Greek and Russian) tradition.

Other singers in this show are Kristen Buhler, Susan Hale, Jessica Israels, Kerry McCarthy, Vakare Petroliunaite, Photini Downie Robinson and Catherine van der Salm.

“A Ukrainian Wedding” is one of a handful of concerts Cappella Romana holds each season — and its first female-only project. Tarnawsky was approached by Mark Powell, the ensemble’s executive director, to create a concert focusing on women’s voices.

“A lot of the wedding music is sung by women,” Tarnawsky said.

The concert was first performed shortly after Ukraine was invaded by Russia in 2022. Tarnawsky hoped it would be a celebration of the war’s end.

“But maybe by the time the recording gets released, it will be a celebratory release,” she said.

“I think it’s really important to focus on Ukrainian culture right now, and this is a beautiful, positive aspect of that,” added David Krueger, the ensemble’s operations manager.

Dolber’s invitation prompted the choir to book two additional concerts, in Lincoln City and Portland, to create a tour that doubles as a fundraiser for the recording of music from “A Ukrainian Wedding” later this year.

Dolber also hopes to draw donations for Ukrainian relief. “It might help people remember and think kindly of Ukraine and do whatever they can to help,” she said.

“A Ukrainian Wedding”

“A Ukrainian Wedding”

Folk music, sacred chants and choral works performed by Cappella Romana, led by Nadia Tarnawsky

7 p.m. Friday, Grace Episcopal Church, 1545 Franklin Ave., Astoria

Tickets are $25, or $5 for SNAP cardholders

www.cappellaromana.org