Eleni Karaindrou – Euripides: Medea (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Eleni Karaindrou – Euripides: Medea (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:17 minutes | 837 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM

Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou’s collaborations with stage director Antonis Antypas have generated some of her most powerful music. Medea, like the earlier Trojan Women, comes out of this association. Created to accompany performances at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, the music vibrates with emotional intensity. Karaindrou gives her themes to a small ensemble, its sound-colours creating an ambiance both archaic and contemporary, as textures of santouri, ney, lyra and clarinets are combined and contrasted. Even with reduced instrumental forces the composer seems to imply an orchestral scope. Giorgos Cheimonas’ Modern Greek adaptation of Euripides provides the lyrics, movingly sung by a 15-piece chorus under the direction of Antonis Kontogeorgiou and, on two pieces, by the composer.

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Eleni Karaindrou – Concert In Athens (Live) (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Eleni Karaindrou – Concert In Athens (Live) (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 54:28 minutes | 534 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series

An exceptional live recording, “Concert In Athens”, the tenth ECM release by Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou, incorporates moving performances by guests Kim Kashkashian and Jan Garbarek. The US violist and the Norwegian saxophonist have each made important contributions to Karaindrou’s music in the past, Garbarek with his playing on the film-score for The Beekeeper (“Music for Films”) and Kashkashian as the key musical protagonist of “Ulysses’ Gaze”. Themes of both those films are revisited here, amongst much that is new. A primary emphasis is music written for theatre: the wide-reaching emotional scope of pieces for plays by Arthur Miller, Tennesee Williams and Edward Albee provides a wonderful context for bringing the guest musicians into contact with Eleni’s soloists, above all the brilliant oboist Vangelis Christopoulos. Recorded November 2010, with Manfred Eicher as producer, “Concert in Athens” gives us perhaps the fullest picture of Eleni Karaindrou’s compositional creativity to date.

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