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SOKRATIS SINOPOULOS

“When Sokratis Sinopoulos plays, I can see all the history vibrating with the ancient sounds of the strings.” Charles Lloyd

 

Sokratis Sinopoulos is a contemporary master of the lyra, a bowed instrument that dates back to the Byzantine era. His playing is delicate and nuanced yet highly expressive, and his proficiency on the instrument has been widely acclaimed. Sinopoulos has collaborated with numerous musicians throughout the world. He’s equally comfortable crossing genre boundaries into jazz and classical, as he is to staying true to folk traditions of Greece and Eastern Mediterranean. In 2010, Sinopoulos started collaborating with American jazz musician Charles Lloyd and this experience had a profound effect on him, inspiring him to take his sound in new directions. It was then when he formed Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet. The debut album of the Quartet, entitled Eight Winds was released in 2015, and received excellent reviews globally. Four years after, the Quartet returns with the aptly-named Metamodal. Both albums were produced by Manfred Eicher for ECM Records. Sokratis Sinopoulos is an associate professor in the Department of Music Science and Art in the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece.

It’s easy to call Sinopoulos a painter, one who employs an arsenal of well-honed musicians and methodically selected scales like paints and brushes. But on the majority of his second ECM release, he seems more like a weaver. In his hands, the lyra resonates with the tonalities of instruments from China to Ireland, threading together various Eastern European, Western European, Asian, and American music traditions. It sounds fresh, but you can also hear the weight of centuries in it, if not millennia.
It is hard to resist being swept up by that current.

JazzTimes

Thus there is a music that is neither a fusion of ethnic and jazz, nor a “jazzizzazione” of traditional themes, but something very, very original.

Neri Pollastri, All About Jazz

It’s a stress-calmer, a meditative aid, a rose-petalled bath in sound. Yearningly beautiful.

Peter Bacon,  thejazzbreakfast

VIDEOS

COLLABORATIONS

We’ve heard Sokratis playing live and on recordings with Charles Lloyd, Jean Guihen Queyras, L’ Achéron, Eleni Karaindrou and Loreena McKennitt, among others, leaving his own expressive stamp on musical idioms ranging all the way from the traditional to the contemporary international repertoire.

PERFORMED AT

Sokratis Sinopoulos has participated in extensive tours all around the world with various groups.

With Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet has performed in significant venues in Europe (Germany, UK, Poland, Italy, Turkey and Greece). On 2018 it has been officially selected to perform at Jazzahead! In the frame of European Jazz Meeting.

PROJECTS

Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet

Sokratis Sinopoulos lyra
Yann Keerim piano
Dimitris Tsekouras bass
Dimitris Emmanouil drums

 

Sokratis Sinopoulos & Derya Türkan Duo

Sokratis Sinopoulos lyra
Derya Türkan kemençe

 

Sokratis Sinopoulos & L’Achéron

Sokratis Sinopoulos lyra
L’Achéron:
François Joubert-Caillet viola da gamba
Andreas Linos tenor viola da gamba
Lucile Boulanger tenor viola da gamba
Sarah van Oudenhove bass viola da gamba

  1. Transition Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet 6:44
  2. Walking Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet 6:31
  3. 21st March Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet 4:38
  4. Aegean Sea Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet 4:34
  5. Thrace Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet 4:33

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY