Early Music Vancouver: Treasures from Byzantine Manuscripts

• Constantinople
• En Chordais

Based in Thessaloniki, Greece, En Chordais is active in the learned and popular multicultural musical traditions of the Mediterranean. The ensemble fuses contemporary musical trends with Byzantine art music and Greek regional idioms. In this concert they team up with Constantinople (under the direction of Kiya Tabassian) to present works from newly discovered Byzantine manuscripts dating from 1480 to 1800.

Please review EMV's current COVID-19 Safety Protocols before attending this event: https://www.earlymusic.bc.ca/emv-covid-19-safety-protocols/

About Early Music Vancouver

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About Constantinople

Constantinople is a musical ensemble that chose the journey—geographical certainly, but also historical, cultural and inner—as its cornerstone. It draws inspiration from all sources and aims for distant horizons. Inspired by the ancient city illuminating the East and West, Constantinople was founded in 1998 in Montreal by its artistic director, Kiya Tabassian.

Since its founding, the ensemble promotes the creation of new works incorporating musical elements of diverse musical traditions around the world, drawing from medieval manuscripts to a contemporary aesthetic, passing by Mediterranean Europe to Eastern traditions and New World Baroque. Underpinned by a spirit of research and creation, Constantinople has joined forces with leading international artists such as singers Marco Beasley, Françoise Atlan, Savina Yannatou and Suzie Le Blanc; the Mandinka griot Ablaye Cissoko; the Greek ensemble En Chordais, the Belgian duo Belem and the American group The Klezmatics; sarangi virtuoso Dhruba Ghosh, Syrian clarinettist and composer Kinan Azmeh, and Iranian kamancheh master Kayhan Kalhor.

Regularly invited to perform in international festivals and prestigious concert halls, such as the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco, the Rencontres musicales de Conques in France, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the Cervantino Festival in Mexico, the Festival de Carthage in Tunisia, the Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens and the BOZAR in Brussels, Constantinople is acclaimed by the public, music professionals and critics alike. The ensemble has 19 albums to its credit on labels Analekta, Atma, World Village, Buda Musique, MaCase, Glossa, and Dreyer Gaido. Over the past fifteen years, Constantinople has created nearly 50 works and travelled to more than 240 cities in 54 countries.

Kiya Tabassian, setar & Artistic director |
Didem Başar, kanun |
Patrick Graham, percussion |
Tanya LaPerrière, baroque violin & Viola d'amore |
Pierre-Yves Martel, viola da gamba & double bass

About En Chordais

En Chordais ensemble is active in the domain of multicultural, learned and popular musical traditions of the Mediterranean, exploring both their creative continuity and their meeting with contemporary musical trends, in a fusion mood. Through an osmotic procedure the group successfully combines Byzantine and art music of Mediterranean with Greek regional idioms and contemporary music. Collaborating occasionally with virtuosi from all over the world the ensemble presents a multimedia mosaic dating from the 13th century to today. The result is a timeless dialogue between different cultures and eras.

Kyriakos Kalaitzidis, oud |
Kyriakos Petras, violin |
Drosos Koutsokostas, voice & lute |
Alkis Zopoglou, qanun |
Petros Papageorgiou, percussion