«The Extreme Cretan Music World»
Contemporary Cretan Music Festival 2021
Monday 1 of November 2021
21:00
Experimental Stage

Circle | Festival

New compositions for lyra and piano trio inspired by Greek musical traditions.
“When Sokratis Sinopoulos plays, I can see all the history vibrating with the ancient sounds of the strings.” Charles Lloyd
“Sokratis Sinopoulos has lifted the music of the lyra to a new level of contemporary music, without abandoning the folk tradition.” NRWJazz

The combination of the lyra’s primordial sound with the piano trio, the obvious influences from Greek traditional, Byzantine and classical music, as well as the variety of improvisations based on both jazz and modern music, compose the special acoustic character of Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet.
The quartet sets off in 2011, initially working with covers of pieces from the musical traditions of the Greek area, and soon focused its work on original compositions by Sokratis Sinopoulos. This material was published in 2015 by Manfred Eicher from ECM records, titled “Eight Winds” (ECM 2407) and received excellent international reviews. It was followed by the second album titled “Metamodal” (ECM 2631) which was published in March 2019.


Sokratis Sinopoulos and his quartet have performed at the most important theatres in Greece and at jazz venues and festivals in Europe: Athens Concert Hall, Thessaloniki Concert Hall, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens Epidaurus Festival, Enjoyjazz, Jazzahead, NOSPR Katowice, Skopje Jazz Festival, Akbank Jazz Festival, Heidelberg Jazz Festival, etc. 
In their concerts they present selections from the quartet's discography with the distinctive way they have developed through improvisation and constant interaction with each other on stage making every concert a unique experience.
Sokratis Sinopoulos notes: “For me, the quartet is the ideal team with which I can explore new compositional ideas and new forms, while what I appreciate and enjoy the most is that we are able to keep the spark lit in such a way that each of our concerts looks like it’s the first time we’ve met to play music together”.

Art Direction: Chrisanna Karelli

Credits:

Sokratis Sinopoulos | lyra
Yiannis Kyrimkyridis | piano
Dimitris Tsekouras | bass
Dimitris Emmanouil | drums

sound engineer: George Kariotis

Bio:

Sokratis Sinopoulos | lyra
Greek musician Sokratis Sinopoulos is a contemporary master of the lyra. His playing is delicate and nuanced yet highly expressive, and his proficiency on the instrument has been widely acclaimed. Sinopoulos has collaborated with numerous musicians throughout the world. He's equally comfortable crossing genre boundaries into jazz and classical, as he is to stay true to folk traditions of Greece and Eastern Mediterranean. Born in Athens in 1974, he studied Byzantine music and classical guitar as a child, and began playing the lyra in 1988, under the instruction of Ross Daly. Sinopoulos' remarkable talent was immediately apparent, and he joined Daly's group Labyrinthos a year later. He became highly prolific, contributing to recordings by countless musicians including Eleni Karaindrou for ECM, Charles Lloyd for Blue Note and Jean Guihen Queyras for Harmonia Mundi. He has also recorded with the French baroque ensemble L’ Achéron for Fuga Libera and with the Turk kementche virtuoso Derya Türkan for Seyir Musik. Sinopoulos was awarded the Melina Mercouri award for young artists in 1999.
In 2010, he formed Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet with pianist Yann Keerim, bassist Dimitris Tsekouras, and drummer Dimitris Emmanouil. The debut album of the quartet, Eight Winds, was produced by Manfred Eicher for ECM records and received excellent reviews globally. The second album of the quartet “Metamodal”, was released in 2019.  Sokratis Sinopoulos is an associate professor in the Department of Music Science and Art in the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Yiannis Kyrimkyridis | piano
Yiannis Kyrimkyridis was born in Ioannina where he grew up. He began studying classical piano at the age of four. Along with his activity as a musician, he studied economics at the University of Athens and at the Rotterdam School of Management. He has collaborated with many artists in Greece and abroad such as Ara Dinkjian, Sokratis Sinopoulos, Haig Yazdjian, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Dionysis Savvopoulos and others.

Dimitris Tsekouras | bass
Dimitris Tsekouras was born in Athens. He grew up in a family environment with intense musical activity, as his father is a pianist-arranger and his mother a modern dance instructor. He started playing the piano and the violin as a pre-schooler. Growing up, he got in touch with Greek traditional instruments and later, in adolescence, he became involved with guitars and drums, eventually discovering his love for bass. Having reached the level of the classic violin at the higher degree, at the age of 20 he decided to leave the violin and work exclusively with double bass. With professor Tasos Kazaglis at the Athens Conservatoire, he received his diploma with top marks in four years. Along with the conservatory, he began to collaborate as a double bassist with ensembles from the field of traditional and world music, participating in numerous concerts in Greece and abroad, as well as in record productions and theatrical productions.

Dimitris Emmanouil | percussion
Dimitris Emmanouil was born in Athens. He is a graduate of the Music School of Pallini where he studied with leading musicians in Greek and Balkan percussion as well as Ethnic, Latin and Multi Percussion. In 1997 he participated as a student in the Panhellenic student music competitions where he was honoured with a special distinction at the age of 17. From his graduation onward, he began his activity, initially in the field of Greek traditional music and later in collaboration with leading Greek and foreign musicians as well as with musical ensembles that perform music from the eastern Mediterranean. His presence in recordings for theatre and cinema is also important.

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