Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando

Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando
Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando
Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando
Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando
Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando
Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando
Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando
Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando

Videos

An Alkis Zopoglou composition from the album "Elephant" performed live, September 2019, in Kavala, Greece
These are just preview samples. You need a valid account and be logged in to watch the full clips.
  • country:Greece
  • region:Mediterranean
  • style(s):Greek, Crossover
  • label:Elephant Music
  • type:Band, Quartet, Quintet
  • gender:male
  • instrumentation:instrumental
  • artist posted by:Medigrecian

Line up

  • Alkis Zopoglou (Kanun)
  • Ioannis Tsigkas (Fretless Classical Guitar, Electric Guitar)
  • Makis Baklatzis (Violin)
  • Panos Karathanasis (Acoustic Bass)
  • Thanos Stavridis (Accordeon)

Life experiences smuggle memories and inspiration into our hearts. Past encounters with unmistakable sounds, ethereal scents and intangible images are the contraband “cargos”, the raw materials kanun virtuoso and composer Alkis Zopoglou articulates into his music drawing from the transcendental history of his hometown.

Kavala, a crossroad of civilizations, amphitheatrically standing for centuries as a seaport of the Northern Aegean with its history carved in the stone and the sea and flooded with the fragrances of tobacco trade from West and East is the place where it all began. In this mosaic city, Zopoglou, an offspring of a refugee family himself, experienced from an early age the music and dance culture of his forefathers. Grafted on the byzantine heritage surviving strong within Greek Folk music, he later studied the kanun in the City of Cities beside masters of the trade and soon began to carve his very own smuggling sound track in a perpetual dialogue with Western Culture.

Under the sounds of seagulls and fishing boats, amidst the paved alleys of the Old Town and Mohammed Ali’s Imaret, the grandiose monument overlooking the port of Kavala, is where Alkis Zopoglou composes his music. Profoundly melodic, at times rhythmical, almost Dionysian and at times lyrical and cinematic in atmosphere, his tunes exchange contraband musical cargoes with the musicians aboard the Kontrabando journey. With Kanun at the forefront (the “canon” for the maqams, the musical scales of the East), Zopoglou’s compositions are enriched with the introduction of various both eastern and western instuments (violin, guitar, accordeon, oud, clarinet, drums etc.) evoking timbre bearing Greek, Balkan, Mediterranean, Jazz, Classican, even Rock colors.

Having released two eclectic and highly acclaimed albums (“Cargo”, “Elephant”), Alkis Zopoglou & Kontrabando have played countless shows as an ensemble around the world and are available for concerts or tours all year round (dependent on availability) with a line-up ranging from trio to septet.