Giannis Markopoulos - Thiasos Tragoudion (Greek Music)@flac

Released with the Greek magazine ‘METRO’, issue 24




Giannis Markopoulos

The composer Giannis (or Yannis) Markopoulos was born in 1939 in Heraklion, Crete.
From one of the old families of the island—his father was an attorney and later the Prefect—he spent his childhood in the seaside town of Ierapetra. The Byzantine liturgy heard regularly from the church opposite his family home, Cretan traditional music, with its rapid dances of repeated small motifs, played by local instruments at the town’s weekly festivities, but at the same time the sound of the waves, and the detonation of land-mines in the aftermath of World War II, all these formed part of the acoustic universe of the composer as a child.
He took his first lessons in music theory and the violin at the local conservatory and played the clarinet in the municipal band.
Meanwhile other musical experiences of decisive importance were classical music as well as the music of the wider Eastern Mediterranean and, most important of all, that of nearby Egypt, which he heard either over the radio or from musicians and travellers passing through his hometown.
Thanks to his father’s extensive private library he had the opportunity to deepen his knowledge, beyond school education, in literature, philosophy, history and the arts. He began composing music during his adolescence and two melodies of this time would later become songs that have enjoyed great popularity throughout Greece…

In 1969 Markopoulos returned to Athens with a musical vision that would not only change the course of music in Greece but would also lend immediate moral support to the general demand for restoration of democracy, the struggle being led primarily by university students and intellectuals.
He founded a new and highly distinctive musical ensemble which included Greek local instruments. Thus the piano was combined with the lyre for the first time, while he also added instruments of his own invention, particularly among the percussion, with the intention of enriching the variety of sounds. He then selected young musicians, singers and actors, from both the city and the provinces, and collaborating with painters and poets he presented a series of performances with his musical works Ilios o Protos (Sun the First), Chroniko (Chronicle), Ithagenia (Nativeland), Thitia (Lifetime), Stratis Thalassinos Among the Agapanthi (poetry by Giorgos Seferis, Nobel Prize 1963), Oropedio (Mountain Plain) at the Lydra venue which he named music-studio. His most fervent supporters were indeed the students and intellectuals who filled the music-studio daily, despite the constant interventions of the regime that would constantly attempt to shut it down. The composer’s vision had materialised and a new musical wave had been born which he termed “Return to the Roots”. He defined it as “a project for the future involving the process of examination, evaluation and selection of the indestructible sources of our living traditions in combination with selected contemporary art forms and elements”: the outcome was an exceptionally original sound emerging from the unique tone colours stemming from the unaccustomed blends of instruments and voices.
(wikipedia)




01. Orhistra - Who Pays The Ferryman (O Varkaris)
02. Nikos Xulouris - Hilia Muria Kumata
03. Melina Merkouri - Kafeneion I Ellas
04. Viku Mosholiou - To Perama
05. Haralampos Garganourakis - Ta Logia Kai Ta Hronia Ta Hamena
06. Vasiliki Lavina - Paraponemena Logia
07. Orhistra - Proino Sto Nauplio
08. Viku Mosholiou - Pera Apo Ti Thalassa
09. Nikos Xulouris - Zavarakatranemia
10. Paulos Sidiropoulos - Den Irtha San Xenos
11. Horodia - O Topos Mas Einai Kleistos
12. Nikos Xulouris - Mitera Megalopsuhi
13. Giannis Markopoulos - Lengko (Ellada)
14. Orhistra - Filikos Horos



Label: Minos-EMI
Released: 1997


Codec: Flac
Compression Level: 3
Quality: High


CD-rip by alekow (EAC and Flac)
Covers Included (400dpi)





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