Rebetiko > Hydra Conferences > 2004 > Sunday

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My diary of the 2004 Hydra Rebetiko Conference.

Sunday, October 16th 2004

Sunday morning was all a bit of a rush, what with contributors who needed to be on a boat that was going soon. As I was too tired to take notes, the following has been reconstructed by looking at the photographs I took... Please let me know if I have missed or mis-identified anyone!

We started with Ali Fuat Aydin of Izmir, Turkey, who gave an account of his fieldwork researching the zeibekiko in Turkey. He also played his saz for us, which was an amazing sound.

Ali Fuat Aydin.

Grigoris Bayiokas of Thessaloniki, Greece presented his paper, "A Social Psychology Approach to Rebetiko Song in Thessaloniki in the Period 1936-40, and its Influences down to the Present Day". He drew some interesting conclusions from the reports in the press of the day concerning the "crimes" people had been imprisoned for. The suppression of the Rebetiko music by Metaxas, who wanted everyone to listen only to Western classical music was a shameful episode in Greek history.

Grigoris Bayiokas

Vassilis Petrocheilos of Athens gave us "A Presentation of the Life and Times of Stavros Pantelidhis (1891 - 1956)", the interesting story of one of his grand-fathers, whose music is on many recordings, often under different names.

Vassilis Petrocheilos and translator.

After a short break, it was music time. Kyriakos Gouventas on violin and Christos Tsiamoulis on laouto, played their arrangement of some of the "Thirty Melodies of Greece and the Orient". The notes that were not tones or semitones had been put back in where they belonged, if I understood the introduction correctly. This was a terrific session, and everyone who was still present enjoyed it enormously.

Kyriakos Gouventas on violin and Christos Tsiamoulis on laouto.

After the music, we heard from Pavlos Erevnidis of Athens, Greece, about "The Musical Technique of Rebetiko Instrumentalists: differences and similarities with practices in Istanbul".

Pavlos Erevnidis.

Suddenly we had run out of speakers. Ed Emery made his closing remarks, including the dates of the next conference, 15th to 17th October 2005, and details of some other events he is organising, such as a conference on the role of the donkey in Mediterranean culture. Naturally, the latter will be on Hydra, the week before the Rebetiko conference. It appears it will include such edifying themes as "What to do with a dead donkey".

Several of us had another excellent meal at Loulou's.

Last supper at Loulou's.

There was a drinks and music session afterwards at To Steki. I didn't record any of the music, so several prodigious taximia were only enjoyed by those who were there. Then, suddenly we were treated to a surprise dance. Ed Emery seemed to be the only person who was not surprised by this...

The surprise donkey dance!

The next day, I went home.

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