Yiorgos Kaloudis (Greece). LA RÊVEUSE

For many years Greek cellist, composer, improviser, researcher Yiorgos Kaloudis has been exploring the possibilities of playing the Cretan lyra, one of the most ancient musical instruments. Combining the techniques of cello playing and the features of the traditional Cretan lyra, he upgraded the instrument by adding the fourth string (lower cello C).

In the programme comprising masterpieces of the Middle Ages and Baroque music, this ancient instrument, the ancestor of most European bowed string instruments, will sound in all its timbre beauty and variety of technical capabilities.

The Cretan lyra is a pear-shaped, traditionally three-stringed bowed instrument, often with additional sympathetic strings. The strings on it are clamped with nails, and not pressed with fingers to the soundboard. One of the most ancient ways of sound production gives an unusually sparse whistling tone. It was preserved intact due to the fact that this ancestor of many European bowed instruments for centuries "lived" in the local traditional culture, was played at dance parties (bells were often attached to the bow) and did not come into view of professional musicians.

Yiorgos Kaloudis delved deep into the research and practice of playing the Cretan lyra in 2005. Combining the techniques of cello playing and the features of the traditional Cretan lyra, he upgraded the instrument by adding the fourth string.

In the LA RÊVEUSE programme, the Cretan lyra appears as an ideal solo and accompanying the vocal (performed by Yiorgos Kaloudis himself) instrument for the music of the Middle Ages. At the same time, due to the author's improvements and author's transcriptions, the classical Cretan lyra brilliantly copes with Baroque masterpieces written for viola da gamba.

The programme opens with a hymn dedicated to John the Baptist. The music is attributed to the founder of the entire European musical system Guido D'Arezzo: the initial syllables of the lines of the Latin hymn Ut queant laxis – ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la – still signify the steps of the musical scale. The English song of the 13th century about saying goodbye to summer is placed side by side with a selection of famous vocal compositions by the greatest poet and composer of the Middle Ages, Guillaume de Machaut. These are followed by outstanding examples of French music of the 17th and 18th centuries – a one-part concerto for two violas da gamba (transcribed for one Cretan lyra) by Jean de Sainte-Colombe and pieces by his famous pupil Marin Marais.

Yiorgos Kaloudis is a cellist, classical cretan lyra performer, improviser, composer. As a classical Cretan lyra player, Yiorgos Kaloudis has released seven albums, and performed solo concerts at the Megaron Hall in Athens, at festivals of early, academic, and jazz music in different European countries and in Russia, collaborated with orchestras including the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and the Lege Artis Chamber Choir in St. Petersburg, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Thessaloniki. At this time, with the scientific supervision of the University of Crete, he works on the musical research project: “Publication of a teaching method of Classical Cretan Lyra and application of modern technological means in its interpretation”. Among Kaloudis' creative partners are mezzo soprano Irini Tsirakidis, pianist Dimitra Kokkinopoulou, actress of ancient drama Sophia Hill, as well as the ensembles Thesis Trio and musicAeterna4.