Anástasis: A Journey Through Old Greek Music

This album is something to be treasured, rarely do we get the chance to hear such a wide range of traditional songs and dances so beautifully performed. Singer Katerina Papadopoulou and her ensemble have woven together a musical journey using pieces from Asia Minor to Italy. Not only is she a wonderful singer deeply embedded in this music, but she is accompanied by some truly impressive playing. It seems unfair to pick anyone out as all the musicians are so talented, but it was great to hear instruments that sometimes get overlooked, especially the bagpipe playing of Chariton Charitonidis on the track ‘The Blue Hen-Pigeon’ and the kanun of Stefanos Dorbarakis on ‘On the Rosebush’.

One wonderful feature of the album was to show the strong musical connection in Greece between traditional dance and song by pairing songs and (instrumental) dances from the same region on a number of the tracks. So, we have an Icarian song to wine followed by an Icarian dance on ‘Old Grapevine’, and the same for Macedonia (‘On the Rosebush’ and ‘The Blue Hen-Pigeon – The Bagpipe Dance’), Thrace (‘Syngathistos Dance – Milisso’) and also the Greek¬speaking part of southern Italy, here as an exuberant tarantella (‘Aspro e to Charti’ and ‘Tarantella’). The album finishes with a beautiful lullaby sung in Hebrew, a fitting tribute to the long-standing Jewish presence in the Greek world.