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

Canada's most beautiful voice, the Algerian-born performer Lynda Thalie comes to Greece for the first time, for a unique concert in Athens on Thursday 15 March at the French Institute but also a unique one in the co-capital on Monday 19 Of March 2012. Lynda Thalie's concert is the opening event of this year's Festival de la Francophonie and is being held with the support of the Embassy of Canada.

Singer, lyricist, composer and writer, Lynda Thalie is considered one of Canada's leading contemporary performers, as she incorporates in her songs the cultural diversity of the country that adopted her. At the same time, he is considered a complete artistic personality with active involvement and interventions in matters related to art and culture.

The special – without borders – her musical style that marries with inspiration and special grace the western sounds with the sounds of North Africa and the Middle East, has given it a cosmopolitan artistic character.

Naturalized Canadian, daughter of a political prisoner who is still missing today, he literally escaped from Algeria, from “fear, the impasse, the oppression and despair that lead you to suicide", as she describes in her relevant autobiography which has already become a bestseller. This traumatic experience may have pushed her to actively participate and fight for women's rights even today, for "the women of North Africa to first acquire a unified - public voice through their own distinct voice".

He has collaborated with important artists such as Enrico Macias, o Rachid Taha, o Tony Levin, o Michel Rivard,  o Luc de Larochelliere και o Yann Perreau.

It has received important distinctions such as the "Ma premiere Place des Arts" awards, «Distinction», «Radio-Canada», while she was nominated for "World Music Album of the Year", at 'Sounds of Blackness Award' and 'ADISQ'.

From her first recording appearance (Hourglass 2002) up to the well-known "Histoire d' un amour" and "La rose des Sables", her albums sell thousands of copies, while on her tours both in Canada, as well as abroad, suffocating sold outs are always created.

Always in the context of the celebration of Francophonie, in two magical evenings, at 15 March at the "French Institute" of Athens and on 19 March at "Olympion" in Thessaloniki, Lynda Thalie promises to introduce the Greek audience to her own musical world.

Source : culturenow.gr

The Pallas Theater presents a great collaboration! Haris Alexiou and Dimitra Galani or Dimitra Galani and Haris Alexiou continue to give us performances... in blue velvet and will do so until 18 March since the 15 their shows that were initially announced were a great success and are being extended!

In blue velvet, the two hours of the program will flow through songs, stations of their long and colorful journey. Like we keep jewels we love in velvet cases, as we describe soft ones, warm voices same velvet, as the blue lights the sky at night. Something expensive, frugal, strong and beautiful, as it deserves in two such routes.

From the beginning of the 70's until today, on a microphone in front and around the world a hug, through the grace of their voice, to be enchanted, to travel, to sing with them.

       
Four decades on stage.

"I don't know how most people imagine this route. I feel like I was on a horse galloping and running and going through different places, I met various people, I was glad to meet them, that I was singing different things, that I was accepted" says Haris Alexiou.

And as Dimitra Galani observes: " Because the dizzying speeds of the record market make the 40 years seem too many. Because it can be like that for an artist's career and certainly like that for a person's life. Because a singer's face is the songs he chooses to sing. Because success means that an artist can manage his past as if it were present and because from the past the future is planned" their meeting on the Pallas stage will be the most faithful projection of what endures in our hearts as truth, the most ours, finally, postcolonialism.

On the occasion of the appearances of Haris Alexiou and Dimitra Galani at “Pallas” the disk is recirculated “Yesterday's songs” who first released it 1981.

Source : culturenow.gr

Premiere at the renovated Acropolis theater on 17 February and for 20 performances up to and including 31 Of March

The Acropolis Theater and the State Theater of Northern Greece are co-producing "Aman Amen", his favorite work
Stavros Xarchakos, a musical performance based on rebetiko song, directed by the composer himself.

The premiere was given on Friday 30 December at the Royal Theater of the co-capital, while in Athens it will premiere at the renovated Acropolis theater 17 February and for 20 performances up to and including 31 Of March.

According to Stavros Xarchakos, rebetika songs are songs of vision for a better life, they are the songs of the denial of dreams, they are the rebetikas of the eternal nostalgia of beauty, the rebetikas of the sanctity of desire, the rebetikas of defiance of terror, the rebetika songs of challenging fate and restless struggle with death...

The "aman" that comes out of the soul meets the "amen" of a prayer. In the straight line that unites the Byzantine organ with the rebetiko and with the Little Asian song, love travels, the passion, the lust, the nostalgia, the fate, the death, dreams for a better life, deprivation of liberty and refugee status. This is how Stavros Xarchakos listened to these sounds of the past and set up a musical performance entitled "Aman Amen". A spectacle-listening with old and new compositions, a folk stage as overwhelming as a liturgy.

Each of the two parts is divided into three sections. There are songs of grace, of Teke and the East.

Source : culturenow.gr