This week, we celebrate the “Ohi Day”, i.e. the rejection by Greek dictator Metaxas of the ultimatum made by Italian dictator Mussolini, the start of Greece’s participation in World War II, the counterattack against the invading Italian forces and the resistance during the Nazi occupation. Today, we re...
Ζούμε τη ζωή μας με συνειδητό νου ή με υποσυνείδητα προγράμματα; Καθώς φαίνεται, η επιστήμη έχει αποκαλύψει ότι μόνο το 5% της ημέρας λειτουργούμε το νευρικό μας σύστημα κάνοντας χρήση των δημιουργικών επιθυμιών του συνειδητού νου. Για το υπόλοιπο 95%, η ζωή μας κατευθύνεται από προγράμματα του υποσυνείδητ...
Folk, popular or “laiko” song – this is the voice of the people, the struggle of those hit hard by destiny, the cry of the bouzouki and of robust voices such as Lakis Halkias, Giorgos Tzortzis and Stamatis Kokotas. Wine here is a kind of medicine to soothe the pain inflicted by love and by the socie...
The theme of wine is present not only in the traditional and folk repertoire, bur also in modern songwriting, rock and contemporary renditions of tradition. From mega-stars like Eleonora Zouganeli and Costis Maravegias to pioneering bands like Social Waste and Villagers of Ioannina City and established...
The term ‘rebetiko’ refers to the urban popular music of the Greek people, especially those of the poorest strata, that flourished up until the 1950s and was later rediscovered through the so-called rebetiko revival. This synthesis of European, traditional Greek, Byzantine and Ottoman music became a f...
The light song is a genre that flourished in Greece in the first half of the 20th century, influenced by French and Latin American songs and characterised by intense theatricality and romanticism. Even though these songs are now considered outdated, they constitute an important part of Greek music...
This week, we take the finest product of Greek culture (music) and blend it with the finest product of the Greek land (wine) to produce a tribute to Greek songs about wine! Our starting point, today, is the art song genre and its greatest voices, from Eleni Vitali to Dimitra Galani, who sang the...
Maurice Gormezano was seventeen years old when the Nazis began deporting Greek Jews to concentration camps. He and his family try to escape by hiding for years in the attic crawl space of a house in the northern suburb of Psichiko.
Interviewee: Maurice GormezanoInterview by: Tryphon KlisProducer:...
Few of us are in the process of exploring our adulthood through our childhood. For those of us who do it, it is always through the children, and that is only when the children ask us to play with them… and then we try to retrieve our childhood memories to run with them. And too often we are e...
Elytis meets Dimitris Lagios and Michalis Tranoudakis
Odysseas Elytis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1979 for “his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear-sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and c...
Tasos Leivaditis
Tasos Leivaditis is a superb poet whose (largely unacknowledged) genius inspired a series of songs and albums. We will be primarily exploring the setting of his poetry to music by composer George Tsagaris, an endeavour that reveals the tremendous political and humanistic thrust...
Giannis Poulopoulos sings immigration songs The songs of today’s GME are mostly taken from the album “The songs of foreign lands”, which was released in 1976. This unjustifiably forgotten collection was composed by Giorgos Katsaros, written by Dimitris Iatropoulos and performed by Giannis Poulopoulos. Ο Γιάννης Πουλόπουλος στα «Τραγούδια της Ξενιτιάς» Μια σημαντική δουλειά από το μακρινό 1976, με τη βελούδινη φωνή του Πουλόπουλου, τους εμπνευσμένους στίχους του Ιατρόπουλου και τις στιβαρές μελωδίες του Κατσαρού, που δεν ακούστηκε σχεδόν καθόλου. Πάντως, με το συνεχιζόμενο δράμα της προσφυγιάς και της μετανάστευσης να ξεδιπλώνεται σήμερα, διατηρεί όλη τα διαχρονικότητά της.
Dimitris Papadimitriou’s Cavafy
With his album “An Alexandrian on an Alexandrian”, Dimitris Papadimitriou delivered a colossal work of 18 songs and six instrumentals inspired by the poetry of Constantine P. Cavafy. The encounter of Papadimitriou with Cavafy is hardly surprising, since both were ...
Constantine P. Cavafy x 3
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cavafy is “one of the most important figures not only in Greek poetry but in Western poetry as well”. Naturally, he has been a favourite among Greek composers too, who have turned to his poetry multiple times in search of inspiration. Tod...
During the massacres following the Greco-Turkish War of 1922, which resulted in the eradication of the Greek population in Anatolia, Stella Michalaki’s grandmother manages to save an icon of the Virgin Mary that continues to evoke memories of persecution.
Interviewee: Stella MichalakiField R...
‘IKIGAI’ : IKI (LIFE) GAI (WORTH)
This Japanese word literally means “the happiness of being constantly occupied or the reason for being, which can help us to determine what it is that we want to wake up for in the morning.
IKIGAI is centered around a person’s true purpose in life...
Ikaria
During the summer, all Ikarian villages host feasts to mark various religious and non-religious holidays. Traditional dishes, Ikarian wine, live music and lots of fun, with locals and tourists alike dancing the traditional Ikariotikos tune, singing along and partying till the early hours! T...
The sun-kissed instrumentals of Giannis Spanos
In our quest for the eternal Greek summer, we turn to Giannis Spanos, this beloved composer who coloured our memories with his special melodies. In particular, we turn to a relatively unknown collection of his instrumentals titled “Deep blue sea”, nex...
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