Speaker(s): Dr. Renata Dalianoudi, PhD Musicology, Athens University - Lecturer, Dpt of History & Archaeology/ Section of Folklore, University of Ioannina - Professor-Advisor, Hellenic Open University
Date & Time: 19/05/2016 16:00-18:00
Location: AVARTS Areteos, Room 3, Former Asylum
Language: Greek

The transition from the rural into the urban environment not only meant the change of life style and of the music genres that appeared, but the alteration of the national musical identity as well. As a consequence, a series of alterations and transgressions took place in the way we listen to and perceive music, in the way we are considered by others via our music and finally in the way we assign ourselves.

Starting from the folk song of the countryside, which –in more or less ritual context- exalts the everyday life of the members of the traditional agricultural society, always with a romantic folkloric mood, we pass to the popular song of the cities, with rebetiko as the main representative, which conjures the immigrants’ financial and social wretchedness and exalts the transgressive character of rebetes, while the post-war popular song consists the throttle valve for abreaction and entertainment of the upcoming urban class. Thus, from the tradition of tsarouchi we pass to the tradition of bouzouki.

On the other hand, the international success of Never on Sunday and Zorba the Greek from the Greek commercial cinema and their famous soundtracks, composed by Hadjidakis and Theodorakis, give Greece the false but so touristic-friendly identity of “Greek souvlaki and syrtaki”, which Greeks easily adopt. And from there, we get to an alternative way of “returning back to the roots” with psychedelic post-folk rock, where the folk clarino converses with the hard sound of the electric guitars and of the thunderous drums.