Music in the mountains

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

This is Angelos, one of the permanent residents of the village of Mikro Papingo, which is one of the 46 stone villages in this mountainous region of northwest Greece called the Zagorochoria.
Angelos is one of our neighbours; he is retired now but continues to contribute to the musical heritage of this region. He makes his own wooden whistles which he plays, keeping alive regional tunes and songs. He is also one of the cantors for the village Greek Orthodox church.
From time to time, when we are playing music in our garden Angelos will pop over to listen and sometimes join in.
On this recording we have joined him on his aloni (terrace) one early-summer morning to look at his whistles and to record him playing and singing some of these regional songs and tunes.
Sipping locally distilled tsipouro we explore some of these sounds together with a sense of companionship and relaxation.
The music of Zagori and wider Epirus is not well known in the wider musical world, but it remains one of the most important and best preserved cultural traditions of Greece.
I would highly recommend further exploration of the region's polyphonic songs, laments , shepherd's songs, and drinking songs where klarino (clarinet), violi (violin), laouto (lute) , defi (tambor) and voice weave a mesmeric aural web that is unforgettable.
Recorded by Peter Annear.