Amelia Muge & Michales Loukovikas: PERIPLUS Luso-Hellenic Wanderings

PERIPLUS * Luso-Hellenic Wanderings

NEW ALBUM NEW CONCERT!

AMÉLIA MUGE & MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS's own introduction to this extraordinary and outstanding project:

Periplus, meaning "sailing around", refers to the ancient voyages around the Mediterranean and beyond, in the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. We have chosen this term to signify our own voyage in time and space around the Mediterranean culture and all the others that blossomed coming into contact with this cradle of civilization.

Our focus is the union of music and poetry, especially those of our countries, Portugal and Hellas. That is why most of those aboard Periplus are Portuguese and Greeks, although we are anything but an exclusive club: building bridges, opening windows, is our specialty, working together mainly via the internet.

Our aim is to create new music and poetry, inspired by the great arts of the past, our rich, common heritage, not only the erudite but also the popular. Thus, except our own original songs, we have gone as far back as the ancient Hellenic music and poetry, adapting according to our sensibilities the First Delphic Hymn, dedicated to Apollo, probably composed by Athenaeos (circa 138-128 BCE), the Epitaph by Seikilos (sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE), and the Hymn to Nemesis by Mesomedes (early 2nd century CE).

In the same spirit, we have worked on traditional themes, like the Portuguese Watering Song, the Greek Cretan Syrtós, the equally Cretan Heavy As Iron, the Epirotic My Immigrant Bird, and the Rebetiko The Manges of the Tavern, which we combine with its Portuguese equivalent, the Fado, while from the Cape-Verdian Morna we land to the pentatone of Africa and Epirus. We have also found common grounds and references in lullabies and children's rhymes of both countries, and also in the love song The Foliage of a Rose, as sung by the Greeks, the Portuguese and the Galicians with almost identical lyrics.

Some of the poets we have loved are present here: Ares Alexandrou with his Illegal Note, Lullaby, and The Inner Rhemata; Fernando Pessoa with his Calm; Constantine Cavafy with his Ithaca; Natália Correia with her Ode to an Emersed Land; and Hélia Correia with her adaptation of the Epitaph by Seikilos, which she sings in the original ancient Greek.

Apart from Hélia Correia, we have more special guests: the Greek singer Eleni Tsaligopoulou, and also Outra Voz, a choir of Guimarães citizens, created after their city was designated as a European Capital of Culture. This participation of the civil society is crucial for us in our effort to link the popular with the erudite, the traditional with the innovative, the ancient with the modern, the Grecophone with the Lusophone, the nearby with the distant.

PERIPLUS lineup:

*Amélia Muge: voice & guitar of Braga
*Michales Loukovikas: voice, accordion, accoustic guitar, pitos, palmas & percussion

together with:

*Kyriakos Gouventas: violin, viola & mandolin
*Harris Lambrakis: ney (oriental flute) & recorder
*Filipe Raposo: grand piano, keyboards & accordion
*José Salgueiro: percussion & claps

For booking, please contact:
Joana Vieira
International Booking
joanavieira@uguru.net
+351 21 441 6200

or

Carmo Cruz
Head of Marketing & Booking
carmocruz@uguru.net
+351 21 441 85 47 | + 351 969 531 745
Skype: uguru.carmocruz
www.uguru.net

• article submitted by: Carmo Cruz, Uguru

Links

• PERIPLUS:Amelia Muge&Michales Loukovikas LIVE @ Culturgest
• PERIPLUS:Amelia Muge & Michales Loukovikas