“Let Me Tell You A Story”

~ A series of stories as captured through traditional, rebetiko, laiko, and contemporary Greek song ~

Once upon a time, on a rainy Friday night in May, Hellenic Studies hosted a concert entitled “Let me tell you a story”! Tales of dragons, love, love lost, spring, traveling through the annals of memory and the lands of the forgotten, refugee tales, tales all-Hellenic, all-inclusive: Pontian, Cypriot, and plain old Greek, shared pains, and told with a myriad of traditional instruments (lyra, bouzouki, kanun!) mixed in with classical instruments, modern fusion. Songs from all-time: Sappho poetry (6th century BCE!) and Savvopoulos (listen to his “As kratisoun oi xoroi” which translates into “May the dancing never end” true Greek spirit right there).

My role in the performance was the narrator. It was an incredible learning experience. I did a deep dive into each song. I translated. Researched. Memorized. And sang to myself (!) to come up with stories to tell. It is incredible how pain and love and spring are eternally combined and how the proof of this lies in Hellenic expression, which is historically eternal. It was very exciting. The student and faculty musicians were very passionate and talented and it was pure joy to be on stage with them.

Hellenic Studies hosts a number of concerts every year. Some of them include visiting artists like Ara Dinkjian, the all-star Oud player (Don’t know what it is? Look it up!), and Petros Klampanis, an extraordinarily innovative bassist. Huge honor for me to be a part of the “dance” this time!

James Bartusek ’16, alto sax, flute
Nicoletta Demetriou, voice
Spencer Hadley ’18, trumpet
Vicky Hioureas GS, kanun
Konstantinos Konstantinou ’22, piano
Pria Louka ’20, narrator
Markos Markakis ’20, guitar
Nikos Michailidis *16, Pontian lyra, voice
Mike Mulshine ’16, percussion
Nikitas Tampakis ’14, viola, voice
Konstantinos Varvarezos GS, bouzouki
Katerina Visnjic *13, voice

Concert supported by: The Inglessis Family Modern Greek Studies Fund