Rebetiki Istoria” Comes to Ann Arbor! by Yonastamatis
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University of Michigan/Department of Classical Studies Winter 2009 Newsletter MODERNGreek Program “Rebetiki Istoria” Comes to Ann Arbor! by YONAStamatis his is a tale of discovery of the finest reminded me of the original version I Kyriaki” (Cloudy Sunday) by Vasilis rebetika musicians in Athens and an knew so well, recorded in 1948 by the Tsitsanis and “Frankosyriani” (Franco- Tinvitation to attend their first and two greatest rebetiko singers of all time, Syrian girl) by Markos Vamvakaris, as only U.S. appearance on Saturday, Prodromos Tsaousakis and Sotiria Bellou. well as a selection of extremely unusual April 25, 2009 at the Stamps Auditorium With a sinking heart, I spent the rest of and difficult rebetika songs rarely in the new Walgreen Drama Center on the summer combing the city for rebetika performed today, including “Tis Arizonas U-M’s North Campus here in Ann Arbor. performed in the original style. ta vouna” (The Mountains of Arizona) by Giorgos Katsaros and “Ta mallia mou After settling into my Athens apartment Frustrated and disappointed and about ginan griza” (My Hair has Turned Gray) Mark your calendars last June, I rushed off to the Metropolis to give up hope, my luck suddenly by Babis Bakalis. I will preface the for a FREE concert music store in Omonia Square. I had just changed in mid-September, when a concert with a short commentary on the arrived in Greece in order to start my friend, U-M Lecturer in Modern Greek history of rebetika and on Rebetiki Istoria, “Rebetiki Istoria” dissertation research on contemporary Panagiotis Pafilis, recommended including my experience performing Sat., April 25, 2009 rebetika performance, and I was eager I visit Rebetiki Istoria [Rebetika violin and tzoura (small-sized bouzouki) at 8pm to find recordings by current rebetika History], the oldest and best- with the group for a full eight-month musicians. Upon my arrival, I knew quite a known rebetika establishment in season. Stamps Auditorium bit about the history of the music: Rebetika Athens and home to some of the Walgreen Drama Center was a genre of urban popular song that greatest rebetika musicians of 1226 Murfin Ave had formed in the late-nineteenth and all time, including Sotiria Bellou, early-twentieth century in the major cities Takis Binis, and the bouzouki North Campus, U-M of Greece, Asia Minor and the United great, Stelios Soulyioultzis. Only States; its basic instrumentation included here would I find live rebetika This is an evening the bouzouki (a six-stringed lute), performed in the musical form’s not to be missed! baglama (a miniature bouzouki), guitar original style. and voice; its lyrics were intensely sad, Sponsored by the Tsangadas Fund concerning the hardships of everyday I visited the very next day, and I life of the urban proletariat; throughout could not contain my excitement: The the twentieth century, numerous performers in Rebetiki Istoria not only governments and dictatorial regimes in adhere strictly to early-style rebetika ABOUT THE AUTHOR Greece censored and banned the music but maintain an atmosphere inside for not adhering to various Westernizing the establishment loyal to the original Yona Stamatis is a Ph.D. visions for the nation. I also knew that rebetiko culture. In fact, the owner Candidate in Ethnomusicology I had fallen in love with the music and and lead singer Pavlos Vasileiou is so in U-M’s School of Music, that it had provided the focus of my devoted to this original culture and Theatre & Dance writing a academic and extracurricular life since music that he refuses to sing in any other dissertation on “The Quarrel I had discovered it three years earlier. rebetika establishment in Greece! In of the Moderns and the Now I hoped to learn about the current addition, despite endless requests from Moderns: A Reconsideration state of rebetika performance in Greece: major record labels, he will not make of Greek Modernity through Do Greeks still perform rebetika and if his own recordings out of respect for Contemporary Rebetika so, does anyone still play the music in its the original proponents of the genre. Performance.” original style? Vasileiou is arguably the best living rebetika singer and his fellow musicians Scanning the shelves of the Metropolis are highly respected throughout Greece, music store, I finally decided upon three sought after not only for their stunning different contemporary recordings of musicianship and technical ability, but perhaps the most famous rebetiko song of also for their esoteric knowledge of all time, “Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki” (Cloudy the rebetiko culture and repertoire. Sunday) by Vasilis Tsitsanis. Tsitsanis It goes without saying that it is an wrote the song during the 1940s as a extremely rare opportunity to hear commentary on the German Occupation rebetika musicians of this caliber of Greece in World War II. The plethora perform outside of Rebetiki Istoria, let of recordings of the song did not surprise alone in the United States. me. What did surprise me however was how different these recordings were In its first U.S. appearance, we are lucky from each other: aside from the song to host Rebetiki Istoria at U-M. The concert lyrics and the basic tune, they had few program will include some well-known features in common! And none of them rebetika songs, including “Synnefiasmeni A Note from the Coordinator ARTEMISLEONTIS C. P. Cavafy C. P. ow do we U-M Modern Greek faculty spend our eds. Vassiliki Kolocotroni and Efterpi Mitsi (Rodopi). Htime outside the classroom? After we have taught, advised, supervised, recommended, organized, and “An American in Paris, a Parsi in Athens,” in Singular professed, we shore up the precious remainder of Antiquity: Archaeology and Hellenic Identity in our time for research. Here’s a brief summary of our Twentieth-Century Greece, eds. Dimitris Plantzos and C.P. Cavafy Professor, professional and research activities in 2007-2008. Dimitris Damaskos (Benaki Museum). y great grandfather, Louis Zapantis, Stepping off the airplane onto Cretan Greece exists not only as an image of that Professor of Classical Studies & came to the United States from ground to a view of the Aegean in the timeless natural beauty, but as a state of Vassilis Lambropoulos M Comparative Literature serves on the editorial Beyond teaching six language courses in Modern Cephalonia looking for work at the age spring of 2008 was one of the most mind. Why must we spend our lives bustling Panagiotis Pafilis Vassilis Lambropoulos and advisory boards of five scholarly journals Greek, , who is also Research of 19. He spent the rest of his life running relieving, reviving experiences I have ever about, constantly in a hurry and anxious representing three continents: The Journal of Fellow in the U-M School of Natural Resources restaurants in a very Greek area of New had. The trip to Greece could not have about all of the things that must get done Associate Professor of Modern Greek Studies and Diaspora: A Journal of and Environment, researches lizards of the family York, where my grandmother was raised come at a better time for me. This was the and all of the places we need to be, while Modern Greek Studies & Transnational Studies (both American); Gramma: A Lacertidae on small, rocky islets of the Mediterranean. and learned her father’s native language. beginning of three beautiful summer months others are content sitting at a kafeneio for Coordinator of Modern Greek Journal of Theory & Criticism; Historein: A Review of Many endemic lizard species exist in the Aegean, By the time she grew up and had children of of catching bats in the mountains, swimming five hours playing with a komboloi? Why the Past (both Greek); and Thesis Eleven (Australian). thanks to the impressive number of islands and Artemis Leontis her own, however, she forgot the language in the sea, conducting field research in has it become so hard to enjoy the simplest He was reelected Vice President of the Executive astonishing variety of habitats. Among the traits Pafilis of her ancestors, and was strangely able protected marine and geological parks, of pleasures, to fully appreciate how Board of the Modern Greek Studies Association. studies is caudal autotomy: lizards’ ability to shed to understand it only in her dreams. As and wandering the islands in search of amazing a mediocre beer can taste after a Lecturer in Modern Greek He is writing a book on hubris. His articles of their tail deliberately so as to escape a predator’s Panagiotis Pafilis my great grandfather was the only Greek what I had not yet realized was my own lost relaxing bath in crystal blue water? Greece 2007-8 are: attack. Because the shed tail thrashes vigorously immigrant and last full-blooded Greek in identity. has given me the most relaxing days I have (the motion is fueled by anaerobic metabolism) for my family tree, virtually all cultural ties to ever known in my life by far, and to be able Public Relations Coordinator & “Stumbling over the ‘Boundary Stone of Greek prolonged period, it also distracts the predator. his island home disappeared within two Over the course of the summer, I participated to relive that experience daily through an Newsletter Designer/Editor Philosophy’: Two Centuries of Translating the Pafilis’s research group has discovered that island generations, long before I was born. in the internship that had brought me to adjustment in my own mentality has been Kimberly Johnson Anaximander Fragment,” in Justice in Particular: populations show different levels of tail shedding, Greece. I spent a good portion of my one of the most important lessons I have Festschrift in Honour of Professor P. J. Kozyris, ed. depending on predation pressure.