The great lady of traditional music welcomes spring and the resurection with a new record praising the miracles of nature and of Orthodoxy.
An interview with Domna Samiou by Anna Vlavianou. Sunday April 19th 1998
“Drop the psychiatric medication and start singing!”
She is seventy years old, but her vitality, activeness and her ‘courage’ as she herself puts it, make her feel young. ‘I have the stamina to continue’ states Domna Samiou. ‘A sturdy woman who sings traditional songs’ as Dionysis Savvopoulos, the person who first ushered her onto the stage and in front of the crowds, poignantly introduced her to an audience of students at the ‘Rodeo’ club in 1971.
Domna Samiou’s life can be measured in kilometers, journeys, musics, research and study. She met Simonas Karas, her teacher of traditional music, when she was almost fourteen years old. She came to love traditional songs. Nowadays she says that if she had been born in the [upmarket Athenian suburb] of Kolonaki maybe she would have grown up listening to Western music at home. But she grew up in the [poor refugee neigburhood] of Kaisariani and from every quarter her ears were filled with the sound of traditional music. ‘I consider Simonas Karas, as well as Dionysis Savvopoulos, as pivotal to my life’. Growing up, she became a musical producer for EIR [the Greek state radio station]. From 1954 to 1971 she recorded musicians and played records. During the summers, when on leave, she would take her recording equipment and tour the countryside, wherever traditions were still alive. She would go to cafes, meet people, and get them to play music. When she quit radio in 1971 ‘because the situation under the dictatorship was unbearable and I blew everything, pension rights, insurance, everything…’, she devoted herself exclusively to research. To date she has collected more than four thousand tracks. Part of this corpus of work is included in her new recording work, a double CD titled and dealing with ‘Easter Music’.
Four years ago Domna Samiou commenced a series of recordings entitled ‘Greek Seasonal Songs’ with a double CD titled ‘Carnival Songs’. ‘It is not of course an obscene record, as some claimed, nor has it been withdrawn from circulation’. Now it is the turn for these songs, spring songs of death and Resurrection. ‘I listened through a great volume of material before choosing the 51 tracks included in this album’. She entered the recording studio of the Athens Concert Hall in October last year and worked very hard till the end of February to complete the recordings. Yiorgos Papadakis, the musical producer of the recordings, was her indispensable collaborator.
The material of the ‘Easter Songs’ is developed over two CDs. The first contains ‘Ritual Songs’, 29 tracks linked to rituals and customs of Spring, which pick up where the ‘Carnival Songs’ end, i.e. on Ash Monday. They trace Lent, rituals and the stunning ‘Mourning song of Virgin Mary’ as it has been recorded in eight separate locations (Cyprus, Thrace, Ikaria, Pontus, Asia Minor and Mytilene) and they culminate with songs from Easter day and the following day. The tracks are accompanied by Violin, Santouri, Toumbeleki and Daouli. There are tracks from Megara in Attica, Baidiri in Asia Minor, Mykonos, Zagori in Epirus, Kozani, Grevena, Crete, Corfu, Chalkidiki and Naxos.
In the second CD are songs of celebration and dance. Twenty two tracks of ‘dance’ songs and tunes from all over Greece. Songs from the Peloponnese, Thrace, Asia Minor, Pontos, Roumeli, Crete, Epirus, the islands and Macedonia accompanied by some favorite instruments: Clarinet, Violin, Lute, Daouli, Toumbeleki and Lyre. Domna Samiou is also accompanied in her singing by children, men and women from the localities where the songs and rituals were originally recorded, as well as by Thanases Moraites, Theopoula Doitsede, Labriana Aggouse and Andones Kyritses.
The Musicians, who are the ones who give her her cues and who contribute their passion and dynamism, are exceptional masters and have been her collaborators for years. Among them Nikos Philippides on Clarinet, Georgios Marinakes on Violin, Socrates Sinopoulos on Lafta and Constantinopolitan Lyre, Panagiotis Demetrakopoulos on Kanonaki, Charis Lambrakis on Ney, Yiorgos Gevgeles on Toumbeleki and Lute and others.
Domna Samiou has been observing a recent shift of younger people towards traditional songs. She could have been pleased with this, if she was not aware of the hidden dangers. ‘It used to be the case that younger people wanted to know nothing of traditional music. The umbilical cord was severed very early on. They have no references, good recordings are not available and traditional music is not taught in schools. Who sings traditional songs within their homes in Athens? Now they are trying to grasp at anything they can. What I observe is that they are only interested in the music of Asia Minor. Whilst every area has its own musical style, these are being lost as the musical style of Asia Minor dominates. The Kanonaki and the Outi are the two instruments most used. Everyone is using these instruments completely haphazardly. Whatever happened to the Lute, the Santouri or the Clarinet? People are not interested. The musical character of Greece is in danger of being lost. You do not hear the Tsamiko anywhere any more.’
She has the same concerns about the island music. ‘Nikos Konitopoulos has prostituted the island songs’ she says. ‘What he performs are not traditional island songs. They are his own ‘island songs’. No relation. Fairy-tales and traditional music do not have overlords. Here suddenly everyone around us is an overlord.’ She knows the names of many who have exploited traditional heritage. ‘What to say? They do not respect the songs. I started singing at the age of 43 and I trembled as I did it. Traditional singing is a very serious story.’
She considers traditional heritage to be an easy target for the self-serving. ‘They have all fallen upon the carcass of tradition and are exploiting it mercilessly. For all these years they have ignored it and now they are all heart torn about it. Suddenly every singer covers traditional songs.’
Domna Samiou has devoted all her vitality to music. She does not consider that a sacrifice. Or a service. She does not like grand pronunciations. ‘It is simply an immense love for Greek music’. When she embarked on her journey into tradition, she also used to play Kanonaki. ‘I adored that instrument’. Later she started learning to play the Lute. But singing and playing an instrument can not easily be combined. She wanted to do one of the two well. Singing won her over. ‘For me singing is the pleasure of life. The best psychiatric medine. Put aside the antidepressants and start singing and dancing! I have had a difficult life, I have lost people very beloved to me, it was singing that saved me. And if now, at 70, I have the same spirit, it is because singing gives me vitality and strength.’
She likes slow songs, because they are more melodic, more demanding. She believes that she renders them well. Samiou has been trying, but also has been tested a lot over the last ten years. She wants to leave behind a corpus of good records, the product of her life’s work which will be available for the new generations. She recognizes the strong impact of a good discography, but also the strengths of performing live. She likes giving concerts and participating in festivities, but she rarely does so except during the summers.
She produced her first records under the label of EMI, subsequently she produced some records under the ‘Lyra’ label. Since 1981 she produces records under the label of the ‘Domna Samiou Greek Folk Music Association’ which she founded. ‘I did not have any intention of establishing an association. My friends insisted and finally convinced me. The idea was that the association could attract funds, so as to conduct some serious work on traditional heritage. But in the end it has only produced five records in its 17 years of existence. As for funding, the largest sum it was ever awarded was half a million Drachmas [c. 1400 Euro] five years ago.
Domna Samiou is alone among the old traditional practitioners of ethnomusicology who is equally concerned with the letter and with the spirit of tradition. She believes that the interpretation of a song can be free, without losing it’s value as part of tradition. Her approach to the precious material with which she works is neither conservative nor limited. That is why her work does not have an archival character. That is also the reason that she does not only use traditional musicians, but also more scholarly musicians such as Socrates Sinopoulos or Yiorgos Marinakes. What one notices if one traces her relation to traditional music is the living nature of that relation. Samiou loves what she does and she does it within a framework which combines research and creativity.