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KATHIMERINI

   
 ARTS & LEISURE 
ATHENS, Tuesday, August 1, 2000 Updated: 08/03/2000
10:2 GMT 

Epirus united through its voices and songs
The 2nd Polyphonic Song Festival starts in regional
mountain villages

Warm welcome. The members of the Heimarra Polyphonic
Choir sing songs about exile, love and death in the
Second Polyphonic Song Festival of Epirus.
By Olga Sella

Kathimerini

It is the usual custom in Epirot villages,
particularly the most isolated ones, to welcome
visitors at the entrance to the village with a song in
the polyphonic mode, a genre that is widespread
throughout the region. At that moment, one imagines
that the human voices blend with the scents of the
mountains, the rushing streams and all the other
sounds of nature.

Polyphonic songs are no "museum piece," heard only at
organized festivals, but are a part of the region's
social life, sung in tavernas, village festivals and
by young as well as old, with the more experienced
leading those who don't know the words. The genre is
part and parcel of Epirot culture and not only - all
the surrounding areas in the Balkans have their own
tradition in this form of musical expression.

It was the younger generation who thought of holding a
song festival last year, a meeting of amateur
polyphonic song groups aimed at researching and
promoting the genre, in the hope of making it a
regular occurrence.

The first meeting was encouraging and led to the
"Great Concert of Polyphonic Song" last April in
Athens's Pallas Theater.

Now the second festival, which begins today and runs
until August 6, includes events spread out over the
entire Epirot border with"northern Epirus" in southern
Albania, an area where the polyphonic song is still a
living form of expression as well as a part of the
collective memory. 

Groups and associations from all over the Greek
province of Epirus, from Albania, from the
Greek-speaking villages of southern Italy (Magna
Grecia), and perhaps Serbia as well, will be
participating this year.

"We are hoping that the festival will acquire a Balkan
character. We also hope it will become a bridge
between the peoples," said Alexandros Lambridis, one
of the organizers and originators of the concept.

Different landscapes

"Another aspect we are trying to promote," he
stressed, "is the thematic approach, in an attempt to
show the different landscapes that are the setting for
polyphonic songs.

"The end of the festival, for example, will take place
in a deserted settlement in old Sagiada, with songs of
exile emphasizing the fact that the village was
abandoned because of emigration. In Byzantine Ozdina,
the emphasis will be on the history of polyphonic
songs. 

"The main concerts in the festival will be held in
villages that are right on the border. We are trying
to revive these villages and to discover the Epirot
hinterland," he added.

The mountain village of Plikati, the banks of the Aoos
River under the Konitsa bridge, the stone square of
Delvinaki, the plane trees of Ano Parakalamos, the
springs of Langavitsa, the courtyard of the Tsamanta
Folk Museum, the border village of Filiates, and the
ruined village of Sagiada with a view of the Ionian
Sea are the venues for the Second Polyphonic Song
Festival.

Participants include the Ktismata Polyphonic Song
Ensemble, the old men of Parakalamos, the youth of
"Polyphonos" and "Chaonia," the northern Epirot
ensembles of Heimarra, Sotira and Ano Pogoni, the
Albanian-speaking "Youth of Gjirokaster," the Tosks of
Premeti, the Anton Potsi Vlach-speakers and the
Greek-speaking men of Coriliano, southern Italy.

Documentary screenings

Apart from live concerts, there will also be
documentaries by Panayotis Karkanevatos and Antonis
Tsavalos, as well as films that feature polyphonic
songs (Theodoros Angelopoulos's "Reenactment,"
Korras-Voupouras's "Miroupafsim") and short films set
in Epirus (G. Zafeiris's "Ismail" and Costas
Machairas's "Short Days").

The festival is being held under the auspices of the
non-profit organization Apeiros, the prefectures of
Ioannina and Thesprotia and local municipalities.
 


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