Category: World

Antonis Leontidis was born in 1996 in Athens. He comes from the village of Margarites, Mylopotamos, on his mother’s side and from Pontos, on his father’s side. He started learning Cretan lyre at the age of nine with teacher Panos Gotsis and then for a number of years with teacher George Skordalos. He has also been taught by many and remarkable teachers of Cretan and Eastern music and has attended classes with: Ross Daly, Kelly Thomas, Dimitris Sgouros, Chihan Turkoglu, Karolos Kouklakis, Irini Derebei and Maria Kotti. Also, he has participated in a lot of seminars in Labirinth Musical Workshop and the Music School of Meronas. He has been working professionally since 2015 with appearances in Crete and Athens as well as abroad in Italy and the Netherlands. He has also played in “Houdetsi Music Festival” 2016 and in “Kinono_1 Art Gathering” 2016 in Tinos with George Mavromanolakis.

He has composed the music for the documentaries: “More difficult years, happier years” 2018 (Production of Koin.S.Ep. “Rodakas”), “The threshold of memory” 2019 (Production of Koin.S.Ep. “Rodakas”) , “Daniel, a French ceramist in Crete” 2021 documentary
short film by director Theodore Markou) and “La route de l‘ argile” 2022 (by Sarah Georgel-Debedde and Kristen Durand).

In 2021 he released his first personal music album entitled “Hidden” in collaboration with the musician Giannis Linardakis. It contains mainly his own musical compositions and some old Cretan songs, with “mantinades” from the collection “Cretan Mantinades” (1933) of the great folklorist Maria Lioudaki.

Follow Antonis Leontidis:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/A.Leontidis/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/antonis_leontidis/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4kLrAmrVlQiPab7uelZO4h
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRkSod7ZgxHdxHhKjcl75IQ
Bandcamp: https://antonisleontidis.bandcamp.com/releases

The Piano. There it stands, thrifty and imposing, a non-portable mechanical miracle of the western world. Α mix of cast iron and wood, while its strings count over ten centuries of evolution. The barrel organ, distant relative of the piano, portable, always decorated with golden jewelry, old coins, and women’s paintings, carries over the same music from city to city and place to place, always accompanied by a man, a barrel organ player who turns the crank that move its small cylinders. And music flows and fills up the dull city streets. While Piano and Laterna* share so many differences, they also have many things in common, just like the East and the West. What if these two could come together, as one? Haris Tsalpara attempts to knit the two ends of the thread…

+30 6946025278
email: t.hara2709@gmail.com
Website –  PianOLAterna (aptaliko.gr)
YouTube – Haris Tsalpara – YouTube
Instagram – Χαρούλα (@haris.tsalpara) • Φωτογραφιες και βιντεο στο Instagram
Facebook – Χαρουλα Τσαλπαρα | Facebook, Χαρις Τσαλπαρα | Facebook

Banda Iovanica” is a folk music band formed in Greece, performing gipsy music from Central and Eastern Europe, inspired by the great violinist Yiangos Alexiou or Iovanicas. ‘Banda Iovanica’ researches and performs folk gypsy music, the traditional music of Asia Minor and the melodies of northeastern Europe. At the same time, it brings new compositions and creates a mosaic of sounds that illuminates, gives flesh and bones to the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean and the Balkans! Lesvos, Smyrna, the coastline of Black Sea, Constanta, Braila and Bucharest are places of action of the very old, legendary violinist IOVANICA or YANKOS ALEXIOU. Music trips in time and space, inspired by the life and work of a musician – “that causes fear “. Enigmatic life, unexplored and secret work. Poverty, love, wandering, war, horror, travel. The music…

+306946025278, +306937073303, +306984723723
Website – Banda Iovanica (aptaliko.gr)
Facebook –  Banda Iovanica | Facebook
Instagram – Banda Iovanica (@bandaiovanica) • Φωτογραφιες και βιντεο στο Instagram
Youtube – Banda Ιovanica – YouTube

Music could never be “captured”, could never stay still or be discovered once and for all. So “Bam” it hit them…Three friends from Athens – Greece got together driven by their experimental mood.
Rediscovering precious traditional tunes from the middle war era and covering them in a fresh and playful way. Rebetika songs, Mediterranean tunes…
Mixing and matching the past with today.

+30 6946025278, +30 6938308769, +30 6984723723
email – bammpamband@gmail.com
facebook – Μπαμ Τριο / Bam Band | Facebook
Instagram – Μπαμ Τριο / Bam Band (@bambandtrio) • Φωτογραφιες και βιντεο στο Instagram
Youtube – Μπαμ / Bam Band – YouTube

The Sabi star flower, also known as the Desert Rhodes, can be found from North Africa and the Sahara to the south of Natal and Swaziland. Sabi Stars seed travels through the vast wilderness, crossing borders and countries. Like the Sabi star, we also plan a journey based on old and new melodies we love, drawing musical material from the endless musical tradition of the wider Greek space, just like the journey of our flower! The guitar intertwines with contrabase, the piano with Santur and the three voices together, create a colorful musical environment.

+30 6972499249, +306946025278
email – sabitriostars@gmail.com
Facebook – Sabi Band | Facebook
Instagram – Sabi Trio (@sabi_band) • Φωτογραφιες και βιντεο στο Instagram
Youtube – Sabi Band – YouTube

Kyratzides is a greek traditional music group that focuses mainly on the musical tradition of Pindos and expands throughout Greece: from Roumeli, Moria, Epirus and Thessaly to Thrace, Macedonia and the greek islands . We can find them in big concerts, in local and tradiotional festivals inside and outside Greece, in performances of greek traditional dance clubs and in social events.

Achilles Chahamis – voice
Dimitris Brentas – clarinet
Nikos Skafidas – violin
Nikos Angelopoulos – lute
Alexis Nonis – percussion

For more information visit their official page: https://www.facebook.com/kyratzides

Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWt82tHv_6KtQBxxGqUcefw

Laikindia bridges Bollywood in India with the Greek folk music of the 60’s. It presents a selection of the “Hindu” folk songs, which were very popular in Greece in the period 1955-1965, connecting them with their original form from the Indian films of the time and the charming protagonists such as Nargis and Mandumbala. In the Laikindia covers, the great folk hits by artists such as Kazantzidis and Angelopoulos meet the original melody of the great Indian composers such as Shankar Jaikishan. The band was formed in the spring of 2020. The five professional musicians, but above all friends, started their live performances in the summer in Athens and then continued with a mini tour in the Aegean islands. In February 2021, they appeared on the ERT1 TV show “To Alati tis Gis” (“The Salt of the Earth”) entitled “Music stories with young people”. In August 2021 they performed at Paxos Music Festival.

Laikindia are: Kinjal Vora (vocals), Violette Boulanger (violin-vocals-arrangements), Eva Mylona (accordion-vocals), Salvatore Conticello (lute-vocals) and Maro Panagi (percussion).

For more information visit the official page: https://www.facebook.com/laikindiaband

Sofia Labropoulou is a Kanun player and composer who has developed a distinct
sound from masterfully blending the worlds of Greek folk and Eastern-Mediterranean musical traditions, as well as western Medieval, free-improvisation and contemporary music.
Classically trained with piano and theory since age of 8, it was instant love when she first encountered the kanun almost a decade later. With her Byzantine music diploma in hand she moved to Istanbul in (2003) to pursue her love of the kanun and study Ottoman music.

As a soloist, she frequently collaborates with composers, musicians, and orchestras from all over the world. When she is not travelling she composes music and presents Kanun and Greek folk music master classes world wide.
In 2019, after years of playing together with Vassilis Ketentzoglou, they released the duet’s first CD “Butterfly” by Odradek Records. Her first personal album “Sisyphus” was released in December 2020 (also by Odradek Records). Between 2015 -2018 she lived and worked in Budapest (Hungary). She currently lives in Vienna, Austria.

For more information visit the website and official page:

https://www.sofialabropoulou.com/

https://www.facebook.com/SofiaLabropoulouKanun

Natalia Kotsani, is the lead singer and percussionist of the acclaimed band encardia, touring and giving seminars throughout Europe, having linked her name with the world jazz music and the songs of the Mediterranean. She is a singer, composer, producer, pianist, accordionist and percussionist, and since 2009 she has been producing and presenting her solo projects. Her research interests pertaining to the traditional musical vocal idioms of the Mediterranean and world jazz music, the vocal techniques and analysis while she is a researcher in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Ethnomusicology fields, designing and implementing prototype music systems.

She studied classical and jazz piano & singing and vocal improvisation in the National Conservatory of Athens, and she attended seminars in traditional singing and repertoire of South Italy (A. Vilani, V. Magnolo, S. Gregorio), tamburello (V. Magnolo, G. Narracci, S. Mongelli, F. De Donatis, P. Cacciola), traditional norwegian, scottish, and sweding singing as well as kulning technique (L. Giotti), and she holds a diploma in MA Jazz Performance, specialized in vocal improvisation (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). She has released two personal albums, two albums with encardia band and she is featured in two albums of the acclaimed artist Lavrentis Machairitsas and an album of Spyros Labros Greek Choir.

Either as a member of the encardia, or independently, she has performed in the largest concert halls and festivals of Greece (e.g. Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Panathenaic Stadium, Athens & Thessaloniki Concert Halls, Epidavrus, Athens Festival, Niarchos Foundation, Onassis Foundation, Technopolis, etc) and she has collaborated with various artists as the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, R. Licci, L. Machairitsas, M. Farantouri, S. Giannatou, A. Ioannidis, Ludovico of Anogia, H. Yazdjian, E. Pagliara, A. Villani, E. Magnolo, D. Savvopoulos, G. Dalaras, Estudiantina Orchestra etc. She has also performed with encardia in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Cyprus.