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Lesson timetable: 17:00 - 20:00 in the afternoon (total of 21 hours)
Traditional percussion and rhythms in Greece, with influences from the Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The daouli, the darbuka, the daf – bendir – riq, the small idiophone percussion, techniques, phrases, rhythmic motifs and the sounds of percussion instruments that we find in the music and song of those regions, with local variations.
Rhythmology, analysis, rhythmic polyphony, percussion groups, sharing roles within the team.
Taught through the oral tradition, we use rhythmic oral language and syllables, and then we notate our rhythms in mixed notation.
We develop improvisation and rhythmic conversation through percussion and the voice, in rhythmic motifs old and new.
All levels will be accepted at the seminar, as well as musicians who play other instruments, but wish to participate with percussion.
* This lesson will be taught primarily in Greek. Terminology will be explained in other languages as well, according to the teacher’s disposal.
Full interpretation will not be provided.
Born in 1978, he first encountered music and percussion at a young age, with his father Michalis Klapakis as his first teacher. He graduated from the Experimental Music High School of Pallini. He studied violin with Giannis Zevgolis, music theory at the National Conservatory of Athens, and classical percussion with Konstantinos Vorisis and Kostas Theodorakos. He learned the daouli from Giorgos Gevgelis.
He plays in music, dance, and theatre performances in Greece and abroad. Some of his collaborations include: Polis Ensemble, Katerina Papadopoulou + Anastatica project (Thessaloniki Concert Hall, Stavros Niarchos Foundation), Domna Samiou Greek Folk Music Association (Athens Concert Hall, Irodeion theatre, discography), Creó Dance Company’s work “Apogeios”, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture (Kalamata Dance Festival, Athens Concert Hall, Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation), Lykeion ton Ellinidon (Irodion theatre, Athens Concert Hall, Thessaloniki Concert Hall), Dynameis tou Aegeou (Vrahon Theatre), Athens – Epidaurus Festival “Here Is a Threshing Floor to Dance” (Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus), Homer’s Iliad (Stathis Livthinos, Athens Festival), Nikos Mamagakis (Ancient Theatre of Knossos), Christos Tsiamoulis, Sokratis Sinopoulos, Giorgos Kotsinis, Nikos Xidakis, Nikos Platyrachos, “Visions and Dreams of General Makrygiannis” (Dimitris Maragopoulos, Stavros Niarchos Foundation) and more.
In 2021, he took over the musical direction for the exhibition titled “A melodic journey through the music of 1821,” at the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments. In the winter of 2023, in collaboration with choreographer Jenny Argyriou and visual artist Vasilis Gerodimos, he served as music director for the piece “Elefsinian Movement” in the opening ceremony for “Eleusis European Capital of Culture 2023”.
He teaches percussion and rhythmology in the form of seminars, at conservatories, as well as in theatre and dance groups, with whom he collaborates in performances in Greece and beyond.