Christos Barbas’ collaboration with the infamous Murat Aydemir, Turkey’s best known Tanbur player, at the Festival of Musica Antigua brings to light the artistic and deep-rooted connection between Greece and Turkey, weaving classical and spiritual sounds from the depths of the two countries shared cultural history and experience. Zeki Mehmet Ağa (1776-1846) is one of the most important composers of Ottoman Classical music. His “Ferahfeza Son Peşrev” synthesis is probably one of the most known songs in this repertory.
Video credits:
Camera: Pepe Zapata/ Recording and Video Editing: Christos Barbas.
Christos Barbas
A multi-instrumentalist and one of the most multifaceted composers and musicians coming from Greece, Christos Barbas guides his compositions with creativity and ethos- the unending pursuit of beauty, the embrace of sorrow and transcendence, the tender cultivation of music traditions.
From an early age, he studied the recorder, baroque music, harmony, counterpoint and later completed his studies of Western music in 2002. He has collaborated with internationally acclaimed musicians, such as Ross Daly, Efrén Lopez, Zohar Fresco and many others, participating in concerts worldwide and recording in the wider field of contemporary modal music with An Music, Felmay IT and ECM Records. He has taught at the University of Popular Music and Traditional Arts (Greece) and in Macedonia (Thessaloniki). He also teaches at Labyrinth in Houdetsi, Heraklion, Crete, as well as in other cultural centers and is the Artistic Director of Labyrinth Catalunya.
As a composer he’s created a variety of styles, including music for contemporary dance, cinema, theatre and modal music. His various music projects clearly show that as ruminative his music often is, it is also playful and exploratory: the jazz project Magnanimus Trio, the Christos Barbas Ensemble that moves across genres touching jazz, chamber music and improvisation, the Barbas / Strønen / Meyer Trio that covers a wide range of influences from folk to classical, ambient to contemporary, only to name a few.
Christos Barbas is considered a master of the ney (a kind of flute), an extremely expressive and difficult to play instrument used in Iranian classical music. He has also studied Sufi and classical Ottoman music, and he plays several instruments from different cultures, such as kaval, piano, bansuri and Irish whistles. His music studies showcase his appreciation of the underlying principles that cause these instruments to resonate most fully and use this understanding to move creatively and freely between instruments, embroidering a vivid tapestry of emotions.
© Photo by Kasia Stanczyk
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