Karali, Elektra / Megarchiotis, Panos
Michalis Andronikou: Heliostagma
Heliostagma, a Greek word that can be translated as "sun drop" or even as "sun tear", is a cycle for voice and guitar composed by Michalis Andronikou, and which is about longing, and about the human spirit. Guided by the purity of form and the intimacy of a small ensemble, composer and performers sought to return to something essential - a rediscovery of the primordial beauty embodied by the classical guitar. This Da Vinci Classics album is a musical and literary offering across borders, a reminder that in the act of singing, of creating, we find connections - not only to our roots, but also to each other. Heliostagma is a through-composed cycle of fifteen Greek art-songs in which composer Michalis Andronikou and poet Giorgos Mastrogiannopoulos reanimate the lieder tradition from a distinctly Hellenic vantage point. The work distils the rhetorical power of the human voice and the timbral chiaroscuro of the classical guitar into a pared-down, modern analogue of the ancient kithara-song.