The Athens Concert Hall presents the concert "Women's Voices in Folk Song" on Wednesday, February 29 2012.

The concert is dedicated to the leading performer Domna Samiou. A woman who has written history in the field of our folk song, so with her voice, the ethos, her style and authentic performances as well as her thorough knowledge of the subject of our traditional music through her many years of research and recording.

With songs of the cycle of life(lullabies, of marriage, of strangeness, obituaries) but also oldest narrative ballads with dramatic content (excuses) that refer to ancient drama we meet women in the folk song tradition. Priestesses at the "passport" ceremonies (related to birth, the wedding, death and communication with supernatural elements), women manage a very wide range of songs with strongly symbolic content and functions.

"Women's Voices in Folk Song", "media of communication" between the real and supernatural worlds, have the first floor at the fourth concert in a row of the Tribute to the Masters of Greek Traditional Music - edited by Lambros Liavas – which will take place on Wednesday 29 February, at 8.30 at night, in the Christos Lambrakis Hall. The Masters of Greek Folk Music Series is part of the Hellenic Music Circle.

Savina Giannatou, Katerina Zakka, Maria Koti, Katerina Papadopoulou, and Yasemi Saragouda take us on a journey through tradition with songs from Epirus and Crete to Asia Minor.

With the masters of our traditional music (Saragouda, Arkadopoulos, Sinopoulos, Tsiamoulis et al.)

The women from New Eritrea dance and sing

The selections in the concert cover many different musical genres from all areas of Hellenism as well as different singing techniques. Entries include 'professional' singers – Savina Giannatou, the great contemporary performer who has been identified in our consciousness with "world music", the original performer of Epirus songs, Katerina Zakka, the Heraklion singer of the band "Chainides", Maria Koti, Katerina Papadopoulou who travels us to the distant Pontus and her special homeland, Yasemi Saragouda of Smyrna (wife of the leading folk master of the outi Nikos Saragouda who will accompany her on stage), great performer of the Asia Minor song – as well as ordinary women who sing and, simultaneously, they dance at celebrations, customs and rituals but also in their daily life as it happens with the Women from New Eritrea.

On their side they still appear

the musicians Alexandros Arkadopoulos (clarinet), Socrates Sinopoulos (Pontic and civil lyre, civil lute), Christos Tsiamoulis (oud, lute), Panos Dimitrakopoulos (rule), Stella Valasis (zither) and Kostas Meretakis (crust).

The ethnomusicologist, professor of the University of Athens and president of the Museum of Folk Instruments, Lampros Liavas, puts his signature on the editing of the tribute which gives the public the opportunity to come into direct contact with top masters of our popular tradition who present representative pieces from many regions of Greece as well as from the "edges of Hellenism" (Asia Minor, Point, Cappadocia).

In the fourth consecutive concert of the Tribute to the Masters of Greek Traditional Music, women from different generations, places and "schools" of folk song, "professionals" and non, sometimes they perform in a traditional style and sometimes with ethnic shades representative samples of their art, with selections from the repertoire of land and sea Greece as well as from the "Edges of Hellenism" (Asia Minor, Point).

The evergreen Yasemi Saragouda comes from an old musical family of Smyrna, performs traditional Asia Minor songs – something he does from the 16 her years – accompanied by her husband, of top player Nikos Saragouda.

The deep connoisseur of Epirotian obituaries and foreign singer Katerina Zakka communicates through the authenticity of her interpretation the feeling of pain and loss of the woman who is left behind saying goodbye to the dead or the runaways.

Katerina Papadopoulou takes us on a journey to her special homeland, performing songs from Pontus, Constantinople and the neighboring Aegean, with her husband, Socrates Sinopoulos, to accompany her on the Pontic and political lyre and the political lute while the singer of the "Chainides", Maria Koti,  transports us to Crete by performing "Tambachaniotika" or otherwise "Cretan rebetika": urban folk songs that combine Asia Minor with the Cretan musical idiom in a unique repertoire.

The very special role of the woman as "priestess" in the "passport" ceremonies (such as the "lullabies" associated with birth, wedding songs or obituaries) and narrator in ancient ballads with dramatic content (excuses) that refer to ancient drama, has the great performer and composer Savina Giannatou, our modern "voice of the Mediterranean and the world", as they have called her.

At the climax of the evening, the Women from New Eritrea – a distinct group of "girlfriends" originating from Ionian Erythraia in Asia Minor, which in their daily life organize on a regular basis genuine Asia Minor feasts and rituals, promise to sway with song, their music and dance – the elements, that is, who make up the "equal and indivisible trinity of our popular culture" - the audience of Megaros, inviting it to become a communicant of a philosophy of life that obeys active participation and authenticity of expression.

 Source : culturenow.gr