Ex Adieretou - Kyriakos Gkouventas

The music band Ex Adieretou invites the virtuoso violinist Kyriakos Gkouventas in Cyprus, for two concerts.

They will present songs from the tradition of Smyrna, which is considered the beginning of Rembetiko, music from the Cyclades, the Aegean as well as traditional music from Cyprus.

The music band Ex Adieretou was created in Limassol in 1993. It consists of: Anna Aristidou - vocals, violin, baglama, percussion, Kypros Mavroyiannos - vocals, Andreas Leonidou - bouzouki, oud, Gregoris Ioanniou - guitar, lute.

They mainly focus on Greek folk and traditional music. Since its foundation, the band participated in tributes to composers of Rembetiko on Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (RIK), in festive programmes on Greek Broadcasting channel (ERT), as well as in folk events and festivals. In the last 10 years, they present part of their work at the music tavern TO ISTORIKON in Limassol. The band has collaborated with accomplished representatives of Rembetiko like Agathonas Iakovides, Mario, Yiorgos Tzortzis, Sofia Papazoglou and the prominent bouzouki player Manolis Karantinis.

Kyriakos Gouventas was born in Thessaloniki in 1966. Having studied violin at the State Conservatory he then worked with the State Orchestra of Thessaloniki and in various chamber music ensembles. At the same time he was active in the area of Greek music (dimotiko, rebetiko, smyrnaiko, etc) and more recently decided to turn his attentions entirely to traditional music. He is a member of the Ensemble of Traditional Music of the municipality of Thessaloniki. He has participated in some 100 recordings/CDs of traditional Greek music and modern “entechno” (“art”) music. He frequently collaborates with the most acknowledged traditional Greek dance groups, such as the "Lykeion Ellinidon", and plays in regional traditional festivals all over Greece. He is a founding-member of the group Primavera en Salonico, the group which since 1996 has played with the well-known Greek singer Savina Yannatou all over the world. He also is very much in demand as a violinist among the best of Greek singers and musicians, for concerts, recordings and world tours.last year seminars in Weimar, Granada, London (soas),ydra rebetiko conference .he teaches in Thesaloniki at makedonia university of popular music department and in Athens at odeon athinon.

Kyriakos will perform with Andreas Tsekouras, an Athens-based musical polymath and instrumentalist who has been the guiding light for many major representations of Greek musical culture. He was one of the organisers of the Millennium Concerts in Athens, researching and presenting a musical overview which stretched from ancient Anatolia to the present day. He features as an accordion player in the soundtracks of several films, and has recorded on CDs including “Ulysses' Gaze” and “The Suspended Step of the Stork”.