Sacred Dialogues

Four musicians present instrumental compositions from Asia Minor, Cappadocia, Istanbul, works from the tradition of the Mevlevi dervishes, as well as works based on the oud and the lyra of Istanbul. Through dialogic improvisations they interact and reconstruct the music material with an emphasis on the affinities of the specific musical traditions, both at the level of morphology and style, but mainly at that of the spirituality and sacredness that imbues them.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Taxiarchis Georgoulis

He was born in Kalamata. He started music at the age of eight, playing the bouzouki. Later he studied the land lute, under the guidance of Elias Kappakos and Christos Zotos. He has attended Byzantine music lessons with Ioannis Plemmenos. In 2009 he entered the paths of oud with Nikos Paleologos, while he participated in numerous seminars of the music workshop "Labyrinth" with Jurdal Tokcan, Erkan Oǧur, Omer Erdoǧdular, Evgenios Voulgaris, Pericles Papapetropoulos, Sokratis Sinopoulos, Harris Lambrakis, Joseph Tawardos and Ross Daily. He has collaborated with great musicians in concerts and festivals in Greece and abroad. He is a key member of the musical group "Akousmata Anatolis" by Giorgos Psaltis. He has won the second prize at the Tunisian International Oud Festival. For the last two years he has been teaching at Ross Daly's music workshop "Labyrinth".

Sofia Efkleidou 

She is a musician who can easily "travel" from baroque and classical western forms of music, to modern and improvisational, to classical Ottoman and the idiom of "world music". She studied at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki, the Cologne Music Academy and Trinity College of Music (scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation and Athens Concert Hall). She has given concerts and recitals in Greece, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Australia, America and Qatar. For the last ten years she has collaborated in numerous performances of the National Theatre of Greece, as well as in theatrical productions of the Onassis Stegi and the Greek National Opera. Σhe has collaborated with a number of musicians and singers, such as, for example, Ross Daly, Sokratis Sinopoulos, Nikos Kypourgos, Psarantonis, Christos Tsiamoulis, Savina Yannatou, Alcistis Protopsalti, Yannis Haroulis, Artefacts ensemble, Martha Frintzila, Maria Papageorgiou, K.Bhta, Thanos Anestopoulos, Pavlos Pavlidis, Yannis Angelakas. With Taxiarchis Georgoulis, they founded the group “Beraber”, with which they play Eastern Mediterranean music, as well as their own.

Sokratis Sinopoulos 

Born in Athens, he studied classical guitar with Maria Galani and Vassilis Gratsounas, theory with Michalis Adamis and Byzantine music and folk song with Yannis Tsiamoulis. In 1988 he started lessons on the lyra of Istanbul and lute with Ross Daly and a year later he became a member of his ensemble "Labyrinth". Since then he has been collaborating with musicians from Greece and abroad in various musical groups, participating in recordings and concerts all over the world. Among others, he has recorded for Blue Note with Charles Loyd and for Harmonia Mundi with Jean-Guihen Queyras. In 1999 he was honored by the Ministry of Culture with the "Melina Merkouri" State Award for Young Artists. In 2010 he created the Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet. The Quartet's first album entitled 'Eight Winds' was released in 2015 by ECM records and Manfred Eicher and received excellent reviews internationally. He is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Music Science and Art of the University of Macedonia.

Derya Turkan  

Born in Istanbul, he studied lyre at the Conservatory there. As a guest artist he has collaborated with the State Ensemble of Classical Turkish Music of Istanbul, while he is a permanent musician of the TRT of the same city. He performs and records in collaboration with renowned artists and ensembles from all over the world, as well as he has a rich recording activity. Among others, he has collaborated with Jordi Savall and the Hespèrion Early Music Ensemble, while he participated in a celebratory concert for Yehudi Menuhin's 80th birthday (1996, Paris). The trio he has formed with Reno García-Fons (bass) and Uğur Isik (cello) has appeared in major symphony centers and festivals in Europe to rave reviews from the press. He gives lectures at Universities in the USA, where he has made several tours, while he teaches every year at the seminars organized by Ross Daly in Crete.