Concerts of Greek Music in New Delhi and Varanasi – VIDEO

26 January 2018 elinepa

Avgerini Gatsi sings the popular Greek song “Madhubala” at the India International Center, New Delhi during the International Conference “Dimitrios Galanos and His Legacy: Hellenic-Indian Scholarship 1790-2018” organized by IGNCA. The reason for writing the song was the Indian film “Awara” (1951). “Madhubala” was a huge success in 1959 when it was first sung by Stelios Kazantzidis.

Four young and talented musicians, Avgerini Gatsi (accordion, song), Nikos Paroulakis (ney), James Wylie (politiki lyra, saxophone) and Thymios Atzakas (uti) traveled from Greece to present traditional songs from Epirus and the Aegean Islands, rebetiko and their own melodies to the Indian audience in two concerts that took place on February 4, 2018 at the India International Center, New Delhi, and on February 8, 2018, at the Pandit Omkar Thakur Auditorium, Faculty of Performing Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

music-5 — Η.Ε. the Ambassador of Greece to New Delhi Mr. Panos Kalogeropoulos, IGNCA’s Secretary Dr. Sachchidananda Joshi and Professor Bharat Gupt offer flower garlands to Greek musicians after the concert at India International Center, New Delhi

The concerts were part of the cultural program of the international conference “Dimitrios Galanos and His Legacy: Indo-Greek Scholarship 1790-2018” organized by the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) under the Bharat Vidya Prayojana in New Delhi and Varanasi from 3 to 10 February 2018 with the support of the Greek Embassy in New Delhi and the Hellenic-Indian Friendship League.

During the conference the Greek musicians also gave speeches with a practical demonstration of the musical instruments and their compositions, making the Greek traditional music known to the Indian audience.

music-4 — Concert of Greek Music in the Faculty of Performing Arts, Banaras Hindu University

The concerts attracted a big audience, former Indian Ambassadors in Greece, scholars and a few distinguished Indian musicians, and they followed with very positive comments in the Indian press. After the concert at the BHU, Professor K.D. Tripathi said that Greek music is very much like the Indian, while Prof. Ritwik Sanyal, who had worked on Byzantine music and Dhrupad, was particularly excited. However, what inspired all listeners most, was the rendition of the Indian-type Greek songs influenced by the 1960s Indian cinema melodies.