Greek Music Education Program: Panayotis League

Music and Oral Poetry of Kalymnos Island
Panayotis League
Harvard University

The pre-registration fee is $25 per individual session, or $30 at the door (payable by cash/check.) You can also pre-register for the entire series at a discounted rate of $125. Pay securely via Paypal using the button above (at checkout, you will have the option of selecting the total number of sessions you wish to register for.)

Panayotis (Paddy) League is at the forefront of a new generation of scholar-practitioners of traditional Greek music. Growing up in the Dodecanese sponge-diving migrant community of Tarpon Springs, Florida, he was exposed to the traditional music of the island of Kalymnos at an early age, and as a teenager began playing Kalymnian music on laouto, violin, and tsambouna bagpipe. Years spent living and traveling in western Crete immersed him in the violin, laouto, and boulgari (Cretan saz) music of the region, and today he is one of the few American-born musicians specializing in these two complex musical and poetic idioms. Panayotis holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Harvard University, where he wrote a dissertation on the music of Asia Minor refugees in Lesvos and the greater Boston area. His research has been published in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies, the Journal of Greek Media and Culture, Ethnomusicology, Oxford Bibliographies in Music, and the recent edited volume Greek Music in America; he has released a recording of traditional Kalymnian music with violinist Michalis Kappas and singer Irene Karavokirou, and is curator of the James A. Notopoulos Collection of Modern Greek Ballads and Songs, whose digitized recordings are soon to be published online.

The goal of the Boston Lykeion Ellinidon and Maliotis Cultural Center Greek Music Education Program is to increase knowledge of and appreciation for traditional Greek music. Our unique approach offers both educational presentations about the music, and the opportunity to participate in it by playing and singing.

The spring 2019 course will be composed of six sessions, 2.5 hours per session. Each session will have a different instructor, and focus on a particular aspect of Greek music, including musical history, influences, instrumentation, styling, significant figures and musicians, and contemporary manifestations.

The class will be participatory according to each leader’s discretion. The instructor may choose to invite participation throughout the session, or in a focused, compact period. Participants may elect to engage by listening, participating in the rhythmic element, singing, and/or playing their instrument.

Each session will occur if there is a minimum of 8 pre-registrants for that session. In the event that any individual session does not meet a minimum of 8 participants, registrants registered for the whole series will be refunded the proportion for the cancelled session. If a student wishes to withdraw, a full refund will be provided provided that they inform BLE, in writing, no later than one week before the class begins.