The old rebetika
In Smirna (Izmir) flourished a fusion of Greek, Turkish, Armenian and western music.
This took place before 1922. After that all the orthodox musicians were forced to
move to Greece, mainly to Athens and Pireus. From poorness and hunger they
created the now famous urban music called rebetika.. Markos Vamvakaris was the
leading figure in this new phenomenon.
The new rebetika
Vasilis Tsitsanis created a new standard for bouzouki playing and also implemented
rich western harmony to the rebetika. He interpreted the old songs in a new way and
also created a huge corpus of original songs. The rebetika matured at this period of
1940-1960.
Endehno and the new laika
The new era began in 1950’s when young composers Mikis Theodorakis and manos
Hadjidakis found the richness of this underestimated urban music. They expanded the
range of music beyond rebetika to completely new spheres and helped to make the
Greek music culture one of the most exciting and rich in the whole world we all can
ebnjoy and be proud of.
The Music
***** Professional Greek music band *****