Stratis Kalogeridis

Stratis Kalogeridis (1883-1960) was a Greek folk musician.

Kalogeridis was born in Sitia, Crete, in 1883. During the early 1910s he left for Paris, intending to study chemistry; his passion for music though became overriding and he enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris.

He returned later to Greece, settling in 1915 in Iraklio, Crete, where he became director of the Municipal Band of Iraklio, upgrading it to the level of a major orchestra. He worked extensively on Cretan folk music, specifically the MusicAL tradition of Eastern Crete, and was the first to record and popularize the traditional music of Sitia. This music makes extensive use of the traditional Cretan violin, an instrument with a distinctive sound characteristically smoother and lighter than that of the lyra used elsewhere on Crete.

Kalogeridis used 78 rpm vinyl records to make the first recordings of many of Sitia's traditional kontylies, a traditional song form.

Though Kalogeridis's compositions reflected the influences of his education in mainland Europe, he produced strikingly Cretan folk music drawing on the traditions of Sitia.

References

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