Music
Stories, anecdotes, artists and evolution of music, between popular tradition and contemporary creation.
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Greek summer in music
At the end of their lives, and after having practically forgotten everything before the great silence or else the great uproar, the people of the old nations may still retain for a short time the fragments of their music, of that which is called popular.
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Princess
Vassílis Tsitsánis was a great composer of Greek folk music and a bouzouki virtuoso. He was born on January 18, 1915 in Trikala and died on January 18, 1984 in London, having written more than 500 songs, whose fame extended far beyond the borders of Greece.
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Balkan Times
Tradition is an action—a way of passing on knowledge, customs, or practices from one generation to the next, whether through speech, writing, gesture, or rhythm. The appropriate Greek term is Parádosi [Παράδοση], which literally means “that which is given” or “handed down.” This applies equally to traditional music and song, as well as to dance, all of which are encompassed by the rich repertoire known in Greece as Dimotikó [Δημοτικό]—in other words, a genre of music that stems directly from what has been transmitted by the démos, or the people.
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A Belle Époque
Neo Faliro—situated at the start of the area known in antiquity as the Bay of Phaleron, or simply “Faliro” to modern-day Greeks—is a district on the outskirts of Piraeus whose waterfront has, since the 1960s, become something of a dead zone. Currently disfigured by its position between two marinas, three stadiums, and an urban expressway, the area has lost both its regular patrons and its very soul. Yet, a mere century ago, the now-faded destiny of Neo Faliro appeared to be something entirely different.
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In Tríkala, Cramped!
The Trikala region of western Thessaly—where I come from—and above all its eponymous capital, are renowned for their composers and virtuosos of Greek popular music. This music is often broadly categorized under the umbrella of songs belonging, directly or indirectly, to the Rebetiko genre—a wide-ranging musical form associated with the cultural expression of the working classes and the largely urban marginalized, emerging in the early 20th century.
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Tríkala, city… not alienated!
We think we know Greece like the back of our hand. Yet the country—an Acropolis of a certain Europe—still holds many secrets from us. Take, for instance, Western Thessaly—the region I come from—and more specifically Trikala, the administrative center of the province of the same name. It lies in the heart of Hellas, serving as a gateway to Northern Greece for those traveling up from Athens, well past Delphi.