For Smyrna
"Neither my grandmother, nor my grandfather or any of my other relatives, as far as I know, are from Smyrna. But I, like most Greeks, carry it within me as a sweet memory, as a memory of pain, but also, strangely enough, as a cause of pride and joy, which I hope my music will convey to you"....
Songs from Asia Minor live from …Utrecht
Our tribute to Asia Minor songs continues today with a fantastic live recording of a concert in Utrecht, Holland on 15 December 2007. We will be listening to the special voice of Katerina Papadopoulou and to two colossal soloists, oud player and singer Christos T...
Nikos Androulakis sings the Smyrneika
Andreas Mitsou has said the following about Nikos Androulakis, the singer of Asia Minor songs that we are listening to today: “Androulakis touches me with his genuine passion and especially with his love for tradition. He seems to have a conscious relationship w...
The Estudiantina Orchestra
The name of the orchestra derives from the most famous Greek orchestra that was created in Smyrna and toured the world between 1898 and 1921. Thus, in the footsteps of a glorious history, the new Estudiantina was created in 1998 by Andreas Katsigiannis. It is a 20-member...
Scent of Smyrne
The album “Aroma Smyrne”, released in 2004, is a truly exhaustive collection of songs from Asia Minor. Its sound is shaped by leading soloists like Giorgos Koros, Nikos Saragoudas and Manolis Pappos and the songs are performed by top folk and traditional performers, such as Glykeria, Aga...
During the construction of the Athens Metro, the skull of child is discovered, who died during the plague in the 5th century BC. Using the skull as a base, Professor Manolis Paparigorakis, who was researching the appearance of ancient Greeks, began to reconstruct the face of the little Athenian, who...
Voyage to Lesbos
The album "Journey to Lesvos" includes a small part of the exciting repertoire of the island of Lesvos. This is a place with rich sounds and with many influences from the West and the East. The musical journey takes you mentally to the beautiful corners and the picturesque alleys of...
Songs from the village of Ayiassos
With their ceaseless imagination and work, the inhabitants of Ayiasos, Lesbos, carved out an unsurpassable artistic and folk tradition. And raised with the melodies played by the magic flute of nature, such as the sound of the wind and the roars of winter storms,...
Angelique Ionatos’ Sappho De Mytilene
Greek poet Sappho was one of the greatest poets in classical literature. Her lyric poetry is among the finest ever written and, although little of her work has survived and little is known about her, she is regarded often as the greatest woman poet in world l...
Mariza Koch, Nikos Xydakis, Sappho
Composer Nikos Xydakis explains his approach to Sapho’s poetry: "I always found it very difficult to put a melody onto a direct, erotic speech. My motivation was to make the words sound convincing in my mouth. Regardless of whether they were spoken yesterday or t...
Sotiris Kakisis’ Sappho
Scholar Dimitrios Kargiotis notes the following about the way in which poet Sotiris Kakisis translated Sappho’s poetry into modern Greek: “Kakisis endeavours to attain totality against the fragmentary nature of the Sapphic corpus. He delves into a poetics of restitution, inven...
Do we really see everything on an archaeological site? What goes on when the visitors leave? What special requests do visitors make? Sotiris Gousis worked as a technician on the Acropolis for decades. He knows all its hidden secrets and shares a few of them with us…
Interviewee: Sot...
Nikos Kavvadias
Nikos Kavvadias was born on 11 January 1910 and died on 10 February 1975. He was a Greek poet, writer and a sailor by profession. He used his travels around the world, the life at sea and its adventures, as powerful metaphors for the escape of ordinary people, outside the boundaries of...
Songs about boats, part 4
Along with storm and the Sirocco a fishing boat came from Morocco. Along with the wind and the cold breeze a sailboat is sailing to Benghazi. Along with the fireship captain, a boat came from Algeria. And having Greece as a captain a frigate is headed to Egypt. Saint Nicholas...
Songs about boats, part 3
During their history, the Greeks - more than any other people in the world - have remained mariners without interruption; they have loved the sea, they have thought of it as a beautiful element, and they believed it had godlike powers. Greek song totally agrees with this...
Songs about boats, part 2
Greece is the largest shipowning nation in the world, as Greek shipowners control the highest share, 21%, of the global merchant fleet in terms of deadweight tonnes. During the last ten years the total capacity of the Greek merchant fleet, currently consisting of 5,520 ships,...
Songs about boats, part 1
A ship with a foreign flag, the small ship of Burnovas, ships from Chios, ships that never sailed, and so on. The list of Greek songs that contain references to ships and boats are just endless, because the sea is ever-present in the geography, the economy and the culture...
Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for the British ‘like that of the Greeks’. Was Galadriel, the queen of elves, inspired by Circe and Calypso? Bilbo by Odysseus? What do Ajax and Boromir have in common, and what is the link between the fate of Atlantis and the fall of Numenor?
Interviewee: Dim...
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