Martha Mavroidi Quartet to Perform at BAMcafe This Month

The Onassis Cultural Center New York presents Martha Mavroidi Quartet in She Sings the Old - She Sings the New at the BAMcafé on Tuesday, December 13 at 7 PM. Music that explores the thread connecting old acoustic sounds of Greek and Balkan folk music with today's contemporary world music.

For centuries, the Balkan Peninsula has been the setting of a rich cultural exchange in music, dance, and art. The Onassis Cultural Center New York is privileged to present the Martha Mavroidi Quartet in a concert that unwinds the thread that weaves multiple cultural influences into one entity and reveals the old traditions and new musical expressions.

The concert takes place at the BAMcafé in the Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.

New Sounds

New compositions mixed with reworked configurations of old songs create an energized contemporary sound. Different regional styles from the Balkans with lyrics from Greek, Turkish, and Bulgarian poets are presented in contemporary interpretations by the quartet's acoustic instruments, Mavroidi's electric lafta and a custom-made electric version of a Constantinople lute. The sounds you'll hear are reminiscent of jazz but polyphonically unique to our ears.

Old Sounds

In a tribute to the old acoustic sounds, the quartet plays music from the islands of the Aegean, regions of Macedonia and Thrace in Greece, as well as Turkey. The concert features music from Greece's eastern and northern borders, exploring common traditions that traverse the folk music continuum across the region.

Martha Mavroidi

Martha Mavroidi is a singer, lutist, and composer from Greece. She has been singing and playing folk lutes since childhood, and performing music from Greece and the Balkans. Later she developed an interest in contemporary music, blending elements of folk music with contemporary harmony and improvisation. She has participated in various world and contemporary music projects in Europe and the United States. With the Martha Mavroidi Trio she toured Sweden, Spain, France, Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece, and has performed at the Womex Globalkan Scene in 2012. She has composed music for films, dance, and theater productions. Since 2013 Mavroidi has been the artistic director of the Tinos World Music Festival.

Mavroidi studied Musicology in Athens, Ethnomusicology in London (SOAS) and Los Angeles (UCLA), and Contemporary Music in Amsterdam (Conservatorium Van Amsterdam). She studied the saz with Periklis Papapetropoulos, Byzantine chanting with Ioannis Arvanitis, Bulgarian singing with Dessislava Stefanova, Galina Durmushlyiska, and Tzvetanka Varimezova, and vocal technique with Giorgos Samartzis.

She has collaborated with choirs and vocal ensembles, composing and arranging music for voices a capella, and she has been teaching seminars on polyphonic singing and modal improvisation. She conducts the vocal orchestra Happy Hour Choir and the Greek Folk Choir of the National Conservatory of Holargos.

Performers:

Martha Mavroidi: vocals, lafta, electric lafta, saz
Stratis Psaradellis: politiki lyra
Giorggos Ventouris: double bass
Vaggelis Karpisis: percussion

Free Admission. Registration required. Registration opens December 5, 2016.

The concert takes place at the BAMcafé in the Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.

This event is presented by the Onassis Cultural Center New York. BAM house, ticketing, and membership policies may not apply.

The Onassis Cultural Center New York explores Greek culture from antiquity to today through a diverse program of exhibitions, events, and online engagement for audiences of all ages and interests. All programs and exhibitions-from scholarly to those designed for families, novices, and experts-are presented free of charge to make the experience accessible to all.

The Onassis Foundation USA, an affiliate of the parent Foundation in Greece, is committed to the promotion of Greek culture. By cooperating with educational and cultural institutions in Greece and throughout the Americas, the Onassis Foundation USA promotes cultural relations. The mission of the Onassis Foundation USA is realized through two major initiatives, one cultural and educational for the general public through its Onassis Cultural Center New York, and one academic, the University Seminars Program, that places eminent scholars from all over the world in universities in North and Latin America for courses on topics related to Hellenic civilization.

To learn more about the Foundation and the Onassis Cultural Center New York, visit www.onassisusa.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.