Tag Archives: Domna Samiou

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Domna Samiou died

The most important performer and researcher of Greek traditional music

Domna Samiou is the most important performer and researcher of Greek traditional music, died Saturday night, after recent health problems. He dedicated and devoted himself to the propagation of traditional music and traditional song, since she actually served it since she was 13 years old. He will be buried on Tuesday, at 3 afternoon, from the cemetery of Nea Smyrni.

But let's see how Domna Samiou herself, she describes this relationship she had with music on her website : “My ear to me ever since, like a kid I was, he got all the sounds and musics. My father sang very well, the man was not a singer, but he chanted and sang very well too. I remember when he would come home from work he would take me on his knees and cuddle me and say, let's say, Hurry, where are you going, baby?, in the cheese maker, and we didn't find any cheese, we saw the shepherd… or other miscellaneous, let's say, The child wants to dance, the violins are not here, and whoever goes to bring them, a thaler in hand…

The church of Agios Nikolaos was also nearby and every Sunday I went with my father and attended the service, of course not out of religiousness but because I liked this music, it was like going to a concert, let's say. Little by little I had learned the whole operation by heart, the Holy Week services, the Greetings, I remember that I had also learned "Aspile, undefiled..”, which they say at the end of the Greetings, where a little child is standing in front of Christ and another in front of the Virgin Mary, I recited this whole piece by heart".

Curriculum vitae

Domna Samiou was born on 12 October 1928 in Kaisariani, Athens.

Her parents were Asia Minor refugees from Baydiri, village of Smyrna region. Her mother came to Greece in 1922, her father, captured soldier, a little later, with the Exchange. In the environment of Kaisarianni, she had her first musical hearings, from which her love for traditional music began..

At the age 13 years old, Domna Samiou has her first teaching contact with Byzantine and folk music, but also with the logic of field research, apprenticed under Simon Karas, in the "Association for the Promotion of National Music", while at the same time attending the night high school.

As a member of the choir of Simon Karas, she began her relationship with the National Radio Foundation/E.I.R. where later, the 1954, is hired at the Department of National Music. From this position he knows the most important popular musicians, who at that time of internal migration flocked to Athens from all regions of Greece, and whom TEM records for its broadcasts.

At the same time, he edits music for record releases, theatrical shows, motion pictures. The 1963 begins her trips to the countryside for field recordings and gathering of musical material for her personal archive with her own equipment.

The 1971 resigns from the Radio. In the same year, he accepted the invitation of Dionysos Savvopoulos and appeared for the first time in the youth club Rodeo, giving a great turn since then to the relationship of young people with traditional music.

These important appearances are followed by participation in the Bach Festival in London, organized by Lila Lalanti. The brilliant artistic career of Domna Samiou has begun triumphantly. "The shame they had about the folk song is over", as she states in an interview herself.

The 1974 co-operation with Columbia and consecutive LP releases begin. The 1976-77 with directors Fotos Lambrinos and Andreas Thomopoulos, they shoot twenty episodes in the Greek countryside for the ERT show "Musical Journey".

The 1981 the Municipal Music Artistic Association is founded – Domna Samiou with the aim of saving and promoting traditional music and mainly publishing records and organizing events with strict scientific and quality standards, away from the demands of commercial companies.

Her work now goes beyond the Greek borders. Her records are published in France and Sweden. For about forty years he has been performing a series of concerts from Australia to South America that not only move the Greeks of the Diaspora but also reveal to foreigners a quality "Greek music without bouzouki", as written in some review of her concert in Sweden.

Inside Greece, her appearances at concerts of all kinds and for every occasion are countless, as well as the honorary invitations and tributes, such as e.g. the anniversary show for the 70 her years: "Domna Samiou at the Concert Hall: the known and unknown Domna", in October 1998.

For her various activities she collaborates with the most renowned Greek and foreign musicians, musicologists, folklorists, ethnomusicologists but also teaches, introduces and highlights emerging young artists.

From the 1994 gives folk song lessons for adults at the Museum of Greek Folk Instruments in Athens. Her initiatives are also numerous and her practical and selfless offer regarding the improvement of children's music education in primary education, pedagogically primary and imperative request according to her.

Acclaimed and loved for her contribution and presence, she saw her work recognized multiple times and was honored with many awards, culminating in the awarding of a medal by the President of the Republic K. Stefanopoulos 2005.

Source : tovima.gr

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Women sing the elementary school in the Athens Concert Hall

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