Third ECM album by resourceful Greek singer Savina Yannatou and the exciting band Primavera en Salonico, recorded in Athens in 2007. The collective sails through traditional songs from Armenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Southern Italy as well as Greece, and adds a 16th century hymn from the Yiddish tradition. Arrangements, primarily by Kostas Vomvolos, find the points that unite the traditions, while Savina locates areas where experimental vocal technique can overlap with the idiosyncrasies of folk singing. A magical recording, with achingly beautiful melodies, and spirited improvising erupting out of the arrangements.

The Russian Orthodox Novodevichy Convent, dedicated to the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, was founded in 1524. According to UNESCO, Novodevichy is the best known convent in Moscow, and in 2004 was proclaimed to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This 1989 recording features the choir of the Dormition Church of the Novodevichy Convent under the direction of Hegumen Petr Polyakov. The album is dedicated to the great jubilee of the Millennium of Baptism of Russia, which celebrated a thousand years of Christianity in Russia.

The Greek and Roman cultures of classical antiquity have left an indelible mark on European society. The Greek 'muse' is the origin of our concept of 'music', and ancient Greek culture included concert performances with a listening audience, hundreds of years before the rest of the continent.

Once we are aware that certain music has been written for film, it’s easy to wax poetic about said music’s visual associations. Yet I believe that one needn’t be aware of Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou’s filmic motivations in order to feel it in the same way, for hers imagines, recites, and sings the lament of a zeitgeist in decay. Karaindrou’s themes are potent yet familiar, even (if not especially) to those who’ve never heard them before. Brimming with tragedy and triumph alike, this is music not only for the fictional, but also for real strangers crossing paths in a world of mist and shadows.

Savina Yannatou’s fourth ECM album is a dazzling evocation of her band’s hometown, plunging deep into its rich and complex history. Once known colloquially as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, Thessaloniki has been home to a host of cultures, religions and ethnic communities. Greeks, Jews, Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians, Slav-Macedonians and Pontiac Greeks have shared the city’s diverse life. Yannatou gives all of them a voice, even casting an Irish song about Salonika into this multi-lingual programme, in which she shines as a unique interpreter and spokeswoman for the city’s ghosts. As ever, Primavera en Salonico are a delight, one of the most resourceful bands of any idiom, as they negotiate the inspired – and very varied - arrangements of Kostas Vomvolos.

One of the foremost representatives of Greek demotic (folk) music, Petroloukas Halkias is a living legend and master of the clarino (clarinet). At 85 years old, he is a keeper of the musical traditions of Epirus, a region in northwest Greece known for music with strong melodic lines, mournful lyrics, and slow rhythms. Vasilis Kostas, a groundbreaking performer on the laouto (a long-necked, fretted lute with four paired strings), represents the next generation brought up in this tradition. The two met four years ago, sparking a musical partnership that is redefining the typical relationship between clarinet and laouto.

Euripides wrote The Trojan Women in 415 B.C., but his tragic play about the aftermath of the fall of Troy continues to resonate many centuries after it was first performed. Eleni Karaindrou, best know for her film scores for Ulysses' Gaze and Eternity and a Day, composed this score for a 2001 production of The Trojan Women after being struck by the parallels between the ancient Greek story and the recent situation in the Balkans. Although she chose to use various folk instruments from around the Mediterranean, such as the lyre, an ancestor of the modern violin; the lauto, a Greek form of the lute; and the ney, an end-blown flute, her stark compositions are not folkloric recreations. Instead, she blends the ancient timbres of the instruments with a vocal chorus to create a sound that is not quite modern but not archaic either. Perhaps the best word to use in describing Karaindrou's austere, beautiful music is timeless.

Anatolian Weapons, the project of Aggelos Baltas (Dream Weapons, Fantastikoi Hxoi), makes its Beats In Space Records debut with To The Mother Of Gods. A hypnotic journey through the psychedelic folk music of Seirios Savvaidis, To The Mother Of Gods testifies that music, through repetition and drone, can take us outside ourselves to a liminal space beyond thought and rationality.

Stunning performance in front of a huge audience at the open air Odeon of Herodes Atticus, as Charles Lloyd, uniquely-expressive saxophonist, and Maria Farantouri, Greece’s voice of resistance, come together. Friends for some years, this is their first recorded collaboration. Lloyd’s brilliant quartet is on hand - with Jason Moran in especially creative mode - augmented by lyra player Socratis Sinopoulos and second pianist Takis Frazio in a marvelous programme that includes songs by Mikis Theoedorakis, suites of Greek traditional music, Eleni Karaindrou’s “Journey to Kythera” and Lloyd originals including his classic “Dream Weaver”. “Athens Concert” is a major event, a very special live album indeed.

This is the third consecutive "Euro-Jazz" CD compilation produced by Jazz & Tzaz Magazine (Greece), featuring a large proportion of the groups and musicians that will participate in this year’s concerts of the 4th European Jazz Festival in Athens. Creative music and musicians from all over Europe give an integral scope of a special kind and variety, and a special feeling of contemporary jazz in Europe. This year’s festival is enriched by the participation of the new European Union members from Central and Eastern Europe. Jazz & Τζαζ Magazine would like to thank all European Embassies and Cultural Institutes (plus the Municipality of Athens) for their kind and helpful collaboration in making this CD, as well as all the musicians and record labels involved.

Dury Dava is a five-piece band from Athens, Greece, formed in 2016. Their original music spans across several genres, paying tribute to the raw grit of 60’s psychedelia and 70’s krautrock, and fusing elements from the Greco-Turkish musical traditions such as odd rhythms and folk dances with a punk mentality. In their hometown they are known for their increasingly explosive live shows in unexpected urban venues or mystical summer festivals on remote Greek islands. Their debut self-titled album was recorded live during several sessions in the second half of 2018 at Hobart Phase studios in Athens and is out in May 2019 via Inner Ear.

The 64th Eurovision Song Contest will take place at the Expo Tel Aviv (International Convention Center). The first Semi-Final will be held on Tuesday, 14th of May, the second Semi-Final on Thursday, 16th of May and the Grand Final will take place on Saturday, 18th of May..

Lament In A Deep Style 1929 – 1931 is a new release from Jack White’s Third Man Records which shines the light on Greek folk musician and clarinetist Kitsos Harisiadis. The release is a follow up to Why the Mountains Are Black, a two-disc collection of primal and unhinged Greek village music covering 1907-1960 that was released in 2016.
For this release, they again enlisted the help of 78 collector Christopher King who has dedicated years t

Since the start of the colourful label, the collections on which Singer/songwriters take over the scepter have been very popular. The richness and depth that women as singers and instrumentalists offer cultures on all continents is inexhaustible. With outstanding song wrought from Martinique, Brazil, Colombia, France, Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Turkey, and Lebanon, Putumayo continues its dedications this Time with the focus on acoustic specialist.