Living music by Luiz Chamon

Living music project by Luiz Chamon

A special performance for Greek Easter

How did a Brazilian end up wishing happy Easter to the viewers of the NYC Greek Cultural Center's YouTube channel?

Back in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, the Greek Cultural Center in NYC decided to celebrate their 47 years of existence virtually, producing a compilation of videos, performances, and testimonials by Greek artists and celebrities. Thanks to our good friend Lazaros Theodorakopoulos (who actually lives in NYC) and Dimitris' YouTube music project (Tau-Zeta channel), we were invited to be one of those performances. So on a (not-so-cloudy) Sunday of April, Dimitris, Tasos, and I got together on Tasos' porch in Philadelphia to record this beautiful song.

Vassilis Tsitsanis - Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki (cover)

Συννεφιασμένη Κυριακή (Synnefiasmeni Kyriaki, "Cloudy Sunday") is perhaps the most recognizable modern Greek tune. It is one of those ambiguous songs that could be to singing about romantic heartache just as it could be crying the misery of modern life. And in fact, if read through the lyrics (with translation), it's worth remembering the context in which Vassilis Tsitsanis wrote this song: mid-1940s Thessaloniki, right in the middle a starved, German-occupied Greece. Gives the song a different meaning. Dark, cloudy times indeed. At the same time, the song uses a major scale and upbeat zeimpekiko rhythm that gives it an almost happy feel. I mean, that solo makes me smile every time. So it's certainly a song of contradictions and ambiguity.

Now I'll admit: zeimpekiko is a weird rhythm for me (one of those 9/8, odd metrics for the music nerds out there). This was the first time, after almost two years playing with Dimitris, that I managed to play it. And it took a month of practice. I remember I was interviewing for MIT that week (nope, didn't get the job) and would sit in-between zoom meetings practicing that rhythm over and over ("tam-tam tam-tam tam tam-tam tam-tam tam tam"). It was worth it to share this afternoon with good friends playing this amazing song.

Credits (in alphabetical order):

Arrangement/curation/video/photography by Tau-Zeta channel.