Les Λyristes – The thread of 2.500 years of Greek music – Nikos Xanthoulis lyre and barbiton, Evangelia Kopsalidou lyre, Sophia Karakouta voice
Program Notes
Les Lyristes ensemble presents “The Thread of Greek Music” of 2,500 years, a musical excavation in all eras of Greek Music and of Logos set to music.
Biographical Notes
Dr. Nikos Xanthoulis is a composer, ancient Greek lyre player, researcher and artistic consultant to the Greek National Opera. He is a Corresponding Member of the Archaeological Institute of America and also Assistant Researcher with the Academy of Athens. He has served as the principal trumpet player at the Greek National Opera Orchestra for twenty-five years, and from 2009 until 2012 he was leading the Educational Department of the same Institute. He was a faculty member of the Athens Conservatory for more than 40 years, and tutor at the Greek Open University from 2004 to 2017.
As a composer and trumpet soloist he has presented his music in Greece and internationally in more than 30 countries. His published works include translations of ancient Greek music theoreticians. He was a Kress Lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America in 2012-2013 and 2017-2018, lecturing and performing at many American universities (Stanford, Berklee, Hawaii, Purdue etc). From 2014 to 2015 he was the Artistic Director of the Public Broadcasting Orchestras and Choir (ERT) in Greece. Four Russian theatres have included his music for ancient tragedies in their repertoires: Moscow (Antigone), Simferopol (Trojan Women), Omsk (Oedipus Rex 1st version) and Vladivostok (Oedipus Rex 2nd version and Bulgakov’s “Maitre and Margarita”). In 2018 he published the first learning method of the seven-string lyre. His operas and incidental music have been presented in Greece and abroad. He has released 14 personal CDs and participated on six more, in collaboration with other composers. Moreover, three digital albums are featured on the Spotify platform. The last years he has had a fruitful collaboration with the playwright Christoforos Christofis, presenting their musical dramas at the Athens Concert Hall and in several ancient Greek theaters. Christofis received the coveted “Karolos Koun” Prize for the Athens Concert Hall production of the musical drama “The Invocation of Prometheus” where Nikos Xanthoulis composed and conducted the incidental music.
Nikos Xanthoulis is considered globally as the Musician who revived the ancient Greek seven-string Lyre, having built a firm technique as a soloist and composing an abundant repertoire on the instrument. He presented the first concerto for ancient Greek lyre and orchestra, after 1600 years of silence, in Poland (Jelenia Gura) and Germany (Berlin) with the Symphony Orchestra of Lower Silesia (2015). In February 2023 he presented a Lyre Recital at Athens and Thessaloniki Concert Halls with new compositions by composers from seven countries.
Evangelia Kopsalidou was born in Komotini (Thrace-Hellas). She is a graduate of the Music Department of the Ionian University. She holds a D.E.A. (Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies) of the Faculty of Music of the Sorbonne-Paris IV University in Musicology and a PhD in Μusic and musicology of the Lettres Sorbonne-University (ex Paris IV). She is also a Post Doc Candidate at the Department of Greek Philology of Democritus University of Thrace. The subject of her research is: “The Ancient Greek Lyre from the antiquity till our days”. On the first of March 2023 she received the second diploma of Ancient Greek lyre (excellent and first price), internationally, from Ag.Ioanni Rendi Municipal Conservatory of Nikaia in Athens with Nikos Xanthoulis as a Professor.
She is teaching “Music Education” as a Special Teaching Staff at the School of Education Sciences at Democritus University of Thrace since 2003. She has attended seminars concerning musicology, music education and baroque music through the world and took part with papers, panels and workshops at Hellenic and International Symposiums of Music. She has several publications (books, articles, papers). She is a pianist and a lyrist. She is also playing the recorder and the viola-da-gamba. She gives concerts in Greece and internationally.
Greek mezzo soprano Sophia Karakouta was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece. She has studied piano, classical voice, Harmony, Counterpoint and choir conducting. At the age of twenty she moved to the United States to pursue further studies in Vocal Performance at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. There she was granted a scholarship and graduated in 2003 with honors.
Ms. Karakouta has had several solo recitals and participated in opera productions in Boston, Seattle, in the US, Athens, Delphi, Porto Heli, Thessaloniki, in Greece, and Italy and Ohrid, in Europe. In addition to her singing career, she has been active the past twenty years in the fields of music education, choir conducting and teaching voice in Seattle, Washington, USA, and Thessaloniki, Greece.
Since 2010 she has focused on performing ancient Greek repertoire, the modern adaptations of ancient Greek musical fragments, as well as original compositions by contemporary composers. Her most recent project was the recording of Sappho’s poems set to music by Nikos Xanthoulis, for voice and ancient Greek lyre. This collaborative effort is about to be launched on all music platforms. Her music upcoming performances include a concert tour in the United States with Nikos Xanthoulis this coming Fall.