Songs of Thessaloniki Savina Yannatou & Primavera en Salonico

• 1 Apolitikion Agiou Dimitriou (1) 02:24
• 2 A la scola del Allianza 02:15
• 3 Tin Patrida Mou Ehasa 05:45
• 4 Dimo is Solun hodeshe 05:19
• 5 La cantiga del fuego 04:13
• 6 Una muchacha en Selanica 04:20
• 7 Iptidadan yol sorarsan 05:36
• 8 Qele-Qele 03:18
• 9 Calin Davullari 05:23
• 10 To yelekaki 03:59
• 11 Salonika 02:58
• 12 Inchu Bingyole mdar? 01:59
• 13 Jelena Solun Devojko 04:19
• 14 Yedi-Koule 04:45
• 15 Poulakin eiha se klouvi 04:15
• 16 Pismo dojde od Soluna grada 04:32
• 17 Apolitikion Agiou Dimitriou (2) 02:22
• Total Runtime 01:07:42

Info for Songs of Thessaloniki

Savina Yannatou’s fourth ECM album is a dazzling evocation of her band’s hometown, plunging deep into its rich and complex history. Once known colloquially as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, Thessaloniki has been home to a host of cultures, religions and ethnic communities. Greeks, Jews, Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians, Slav-Macedonians and Pontiac Greeks have shared the city’s diverse life. Yannatou gives all of them a voice, even casting an Irish song about Salonika into this multi-lingual programme in which she shines as a unique interpreter and spokeswoman for the city’s ghosts. As ever, Primavera en Salonico are a delight, one of the most resourceful bands of any idiom, as they negotiate the inspired and very varied - arrangements of Kostas Vomvolos.

Savina Yannatou, voice
Kostas Vomvolos, qanun, accordion
Yannis Alexandris, oud, guitar
Kyriakos Gouventas, violin
Harris Lambrakis, nay
Michalis Siganidis, double bass
Kostas Theodorou, percussion

Savina Yannatou
Born in Athens, Greece, Savina Yannatou studied song with G. Georilopoulou at the National Conservatory and later with Spiros Sakkas at the Workshop of Vocal Art in Athens. She attended postgraduate studies (performance and communication skills) at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, with a scholarship awarded by the Mousigetis Foundation.

Her professional career as a singer started while still a student, when she sang for the very successful and until today highly respected daily program of the Greek National Radio 3 «Lillipoupoli» under the direction of the famous composer Manos Hadjidakis.

After that she interpreted «entechno» («artful») Greek songs, collaborating with well-known Greek composers and also covered contemporary opera and music. Later she focused on medieval, renaissance and baroque music. In the early nineties she started experimenting with different vocal technics in free improvisation. Parallel to that she started a collaboration with a number of Thessaloniki-based musicians, who at that occasion founded the group «Primavera en Salonico», with which she recorded - and later performed - "Primavera en Salonico"-Sephardic Folk Songs from Salonica-, "Songs from the Mediterranean" , the "Virgin Maries of the World" and "Terra Nostra" (all released by LYRA/Musurgia Graeca, the second also in the USA by Sounds True under the name "Mediterranea" and the last one also by ECM).

Latest releases are "Sumiglia" by ECM, "Tutti Baci" with Elena Ledda, and "Musique des Chambres" by Lyra also.

Savina Yannatou has also composed her own music and songs (a.o. "Rosa das Rosas" and "Dreams of the Mermaid" both released by Musurgia Graeca), as well as music for theater, for Medea, performed in 1997 by the National Greek Theatre, for Bacchai (2005) and Dibuk (2006), performed by the National Greek Theatre, and for the play "The Woman of Zante" of Dionyssios Solomos, she has also composed music for video art and dance theater. All together she has brought out and/or participated in over 20 LPs and CDs.

Her professional career as a singer since 1979 and as a composer-singer-vocalist since 1986 has been covering a variety of musical kinds in performances, festivals, theater and TV production, recordings etc..

Booklet for Songs of Thessaloniki