Achilleas Chalkias

(1937-2015) Born in Epirus. He comes from the renowned musicians’ family Chalkias and is the brother of Petro-Loukas Chalkias.

He plays the violin and his repertoire mostly includes tunes and songs of Epirus. He has participated in numerous musical events, as well as in various albums, among which are the following: Leventogenna Epirus (1981), Patimata (2001), and Epirotika (Songs of Epirus, 2002).

Songs

Όλες οι καπετάνισσες
  • SongEpirusKlephtic Song

All the Captains’ Women

  • Όλες οι καπετάνισσες ⬥ All the captains’ women went and bowed down before Ali Pasha, before the vezir, but Leni, Bótsaris’ Leni, will not bow her head. ‘I will not bow down, Ali Pasha, not before you vezir, I am Leni, I am Bótsaris’ wife’. Translated by Michael Eleftheriou Photo: [...]
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  • SongEpirusKlephtic Song

Katsantónis

  • Κατσαντώνης ⬥ Hail, high mountains and you, low hills, hail dear Katsantonis and you, low-lying hills, my captain hail. And you Tzoumerka and Ágrafa, brave warriors’ lairs. Ne’er say they captured me, for ’twas by treachery and guile they found me, laid out sick and unarmed upon my bed. Translated [...]
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  • SongEpirusInstrumental

Lament

  • Μοιρολόι ⬥ The tune in free rhythm is a mournful melody from Epirus. Recorded in 2004, on the clarinet, Thodoris Georgopoulos.
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  • SongEpirusLove Song

Little Lemon Tree

  • Κοντούλα λεμονιά ⬥ Hey little lemon tree, short little lemon tree from Vissàni, heavy with fruit, I didn’t see you last night and now I’m sick, and I didn’t even call a doctor. When did you grow up, little one, and spread your branches so? ’Twas you that made me [...]
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  • SongEpirusPogoniImmigration Song

My Love-Bird Far Away from Home

(My Emigrated Bird)

  • Ξενιτεμένο μου πουλί ⬥ My love-bird far away from home, my love who’s broken-hearted, – o, absent love of mine, those foreign lands greet you with joy, while I am pining for you. What should I send you, absent love, to you so far from home now. I send an apple [...]
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  • SongEpirusLove Song

Virginada

  • Βιργινάδα ⬥ A tree… hai hai, Virginada I had a tree in my yard I had a tree in my yard for solace, my love. Its leaves grow green its branches blue. A maiden sat in its shade weaving a golden braid. [Weave that braid, girl, weave it tight and give [...]
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  • SongEpirusLove Song

You, My Little Roses

  • Εσείς τριανταφυλλάκια μου ⬥ You, my little roses you my little roses and you my herbs, my tormentors… ’Twas you lulled me to sleep when my love upped and left, so delicate yet so fulsome. I take to the mountains to search and ask the hills, to implore God on [...]
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  • SongEpirusImmigration Song

Your Kerchief, Yanni

  • Γιάννη μου το μαντίλι σου ⬥ Your kerchief, Yanni, dearest love, why is it soiled and dirty? Come, Yanni, come, Yannaki dear, come now my handsome fellow. T’was soiled while I was far from home, in distant lonely places. O mother dear, they stole my heart, they stole my heart [...]
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Records

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  • AlbumCD, Digital release2006Domna Samiou Greek Folk Music Association

Of Nature and of Love

Through these songs, Domna Samiou pays tribute to how man, in years gone by, worshipped nature as the measure of ultimate beauty, order and harmony, and treated it with awe rather than with the destructive fury of today. The down-to-earth love of nature in these folk songs doesn’t derive from […]
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  • AlbumCD, Digital release1992UNHCR – The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Songs About Greeks Far From Home

This CD, published by UNHCR with an informative booklet, includes sixteen songs narrating different aspects of migrating to foreign lands: departure and life in foreign lands; the lives of families left behind; death in foreign lands or a return home. It marks a new direction to Domna Samiou’s music publications: […]
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  • AlbumDigital release, LP1989UNHCR – The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Songs About Greeks Far From Home (LP)

This LP includes nineteen songs narrating all the different aspects of migrating in foreign lands: the departure and the life to foreign lands, the life of the family left behind, death in these foreign lands or the return home. This publication of the UNHCR, with its informative accompanying booklet, introduces […]
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  • AlbumCD, Digital release2007Domna Samiou Greek Folk Music Association

Songs of History and Heroes

The retelling of fine, magnificent, heroic deeds from the past has always inspired a future path for every nation, the weft on which its future is woven. Austere and Doric, as stern as the heroes they describe, these songs from history function both as chronicles and musical myths, and as […]
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