The morning session began with a paper from Kirsti Thorsten, whose paper was on Seferis and Greek music. I was having a fairly slow start to the day, and I forgot to photograph her while she was speaking.
We then heard from Anna Babali of the University of Surrey, whose paper was entitled "Constructions of Greek Musical Nationalism". The fog was beginning to clear, but I forgot to photograph her while she was speaking, and afterwards. Sorry.
The conference continued with Norman Healy, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. His paper was titled "An Introduction to (Anatolian) Zeybeks and Zeybek Music". The full armoury of technology was employed to good effect in this interesting presentation.
Next, it was the turn of two regular visitors to the conference, Ali Fuat Aydin and Cenk Guray, of Izmir and Ankara, who spoke on "The Role of Greek Composers in the Development of Classical Ottoman Music".
Lunchtime came, and I grabbed a cheese pie, and went off to make sure I had plenty of fully charged batteries for the afternoon and evening.
The afternoon session was held in the excellent conference facilities of the Bratsera Hotel, which has very comfortable chairs. I'm told it's a very comfy hotel to stay in, as well.
We began the afternoon with a session I had been looking forward to, as Olaf Schafer of Berlin told us about the first bouzouki recording, made in Germany in 1917. It wasn't a particularly exciting bit of playing, but it was the first (known) bouzouki recording, and now I have heard it. The player was called Kalamaris, and he was born in 1894 on the island of Syros, which is where Markos Vamvakaris came from, as well. This talk was followed by the showing of the film "The Wonder of Gorlitz", about the Greek soldiers who were in Germany in 1917, made by Konstantinos Toubekis in 2006.
We then heard from Yona Stamatis of the University of Michigan, who spoke on "Mikis Theodorakis and the popularity of the Entechno Laiko Tragoudi".
The next item was a mini-concert by Ali Fuat Aydin and Cenk Guray. This is something I look forward to each year, as their playing is totally wondrous. This year I was taken by surprise, as Ali Fuat gave me two CDs of their music, that were recorded at concerts in Ankara. They are really rather good, and you can download them from here:
By this time, it was dark enough for a good friend of the Hydra Conference to give her presentation of "Memoirs of a Greek Dancer". I have no photographs, as this was a very personal performance, and to have used flash would not have been right. I have had to remove her name, as its appearance here has been causing her serious problems with a very unpleasant bunch of cretins who quite frankly deserve to be treated as badly as they treat other people... end of rant, back to the conference!
After a further battery charging session, and a tasty ouzo appetiser, I set off for the Douskos Restaurant, hardly a long way. It was filling up rapidly, but I was able to get a seat at a table at the front, with some of my friends. The restaurant got really full, but to our astonishment the waiters began serving us straight away, and did a superb job all evening. We had a good amount of retsina, but I was being a bit careful. The food was good, there was more than enough, and the price turned out to be good too.
The music was provided by
- Kyriakos Gouventas - violin and baglama
- Manos Koutsangelidhis - kanonaki and vocals
- Nikos Mermigas - bouzouki
- Thodoros Mermigas - guitar and vocals
- Katerina Mitropoulou - outi and vocals
The music was great, and I recorded it with my Archos. As usual, the sound engineer recorded everything from his desk, and I believe it is intended that these recordings will eventually become available on CD. [Update: 2012, six years later, still nothing.]
When some of the band took a break, they were replaced (apart from the workaholic guitarist) by conference attendees.
When things seemed to be winding down in the small hours, I wandered back to the Hippocampos Hotel, without stopping the recorder. The sound volume from my windowsill was adequate for recording, but they stopped soon after that. Another great Hydra concert!