lalaavedis

© Altered Lens

The 29th annual Greek Festival of Sydney featured top Greek music to celebrate its finale. The dancing and singing ran all night at the Community Center on Addison Road, with performers including George Doukas and his band Balcano, Kostas Polydoropoulos Giourtali with Carlo, and many other artists.

Special guests Polydoropoulos Kostas on vocals and guitar and Carlos Giourtalis on bouzouki performed various Greek songs, and a dance group form the Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales also made an appearance under the guidance of a top dance teacher, Paroulas Gkaleili-Thermpan. For 45 years she has taught folk dances and culture to the children of the Diaspora. The group Earthquake, led by Harry's Claudius and Nelly Kordaki, also performed folk dances at the event. Tickets were priced at $22 and included food, drinks and free parking.

© matsuyuki

The latest Greek music from band Avra and Yiorgo features a beautiful track called Sams Song. This son is written for, and dedicated to, iorgo Bousias' daughter Samantha. Sams song is a duet. In Greek the lyrics are "Sigotragoudoun ola ta asteria Otan me Akoun na se Skeftome".

Translated into English, this means "The stars in the sky softly sing every time they hear me think of you." Sams song features Yiorgo on vocals and the amazing voice of Avra Velis. The combination of her voice over Yiorgos harmonies is enough to give the listener goose bumps. Avra and Yiorgo's latest album is a combination of modern Greek music combined with The Bouzouki, but just enough Bouzouki to make the music sound very tasteful and different from the Laika Greek music.

© Ferrari + caballos + fuerza = cerebro Humano 

Rebetika is a style of Greek music born in the 1930s. Director Stephen Lloyd Helper rediscovered this style of music in an old record store, and with the help of Thomas Papathanassiou, he wrote the play Cafe Rebetika.

The story is driven by the music, and tells the socio-political story of Greece in the 1930s. For most Greek people, this time represents a wound in their history as a lot of people died and lost their land. The story is set in a hash den where musicians, anarchists, refugees, communists, and manges gather. They turn to hashish and heroin to block out their tragic past, but the story does have a happy ending and speaks to the power of art and music to sustain a people and their culture. Papathanassiou compares Rebetika to the history of American blues, when displaced people have taken their art forms with them.