Asikiko Poulaki | Crete

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Mikis Theodorakis’ remarkable work Asikiko Poulaki, with lyrics by Michalis Ganas, comes to life in a unique concert. The orchestration and adaptation of the work, at the composer’s request, bear the stamp of the established and versatile composer Andreas Katsigiannis, the founder of the Estoudiantina Neas Ionias, Magnesia Orchestra.

The new approach to this special work by Yannis Dionysiou and Estoudiantina Neas Ionias, Magnesia, a distinguished and well-travelled traditional music orchestra that creatively upholds the continuity of the eclectic Smyrnaic tradition, offers the audience a contemporary and productive reconnection of Theodorakis' inspiration with its traditional Ionian roots.

Among the most interesting and unusual compositions in Mikis Theodorakis' inexhaustible oeuvre, the song cycle with the peculiar title Asikiko Poulaki came into being thanks to the initiative and fertile collaboration of a group of artists (including the guitarist and arranger Yannis Spathas, the singer Vasilis Lekkas, and the poet Michalis Ganas) to whom Theodorakis entrusted the first recording of the work, released in 1996.

The cycle Asikiko Poulaki is the climax of the long, though covert, experimentation of the then seventy-year-old Theodorakis with the melodic modes and asymmetrical rhythms of Asia Minor tradition. Additionally, it constitutes a belated and moving tribute to the composer's mother, Aspasia Poulaki (whose last name, literally meaning «little bird», appears in the work's title), as well as to her ancestry (from Çeşme, Asia Minor). Moreover, thanks to Michalis Ganas’ initiative, the song “The Paths of the Archangel” was added to the cycle, inspired by the composer’s autobiography of the same title.