Savina Yannatou & Primavera en Salonico with Lamia Bedioui, Spivak

Greek vocalist Savina Yannatou, an extraordinary explorer of global vocal traditions (from Sephardic folk and improvisation to throat-singing and glossolalia), and her longstanding ensemble, Primavera en Salonico, accompanied by Lamia Bedioui, let us drift into a transcendent world with their moving performances of maritime-rooted songs.  

Yannatou’s artistry has most recently been showcased in Watersong, a newly released album blending water-themed songs from Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Egypt, and beyond. With instruments like the qanun and ney, the album captures water’s many faces: its mystery, its lull, its power, its solace and more.

The evening will start with Spivak, a Cypriot musician and sound artist whose distinctive vision merges architectural insight with sonic exploration, transporting us into the world of her avant-garde soundscapes.

Instagram Savina Yannatou

Savina Yannatou studied singing in Athens with Gogo Georgilopoulou and Spiros Sakkas, and later attended classes at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She became widely known in Greece through her radio collaborations with the composer Lena Platonos. In the 1980s, she was a founding member of the Athens Early Music Workshop. In the 1990s, alongside the early stages of the ensemble Primavera en Salonico, she deepened her research into free improvised music, collaborating with Peter Kowald, Barry Guy, Floros Floridis, and others. Her music today reflects all of these influences.

Primavera en Salonico was formed in 1993 to perform Kostas Vombolos’s arrangements of Sephardic traditional songs with Savina Yannatou, and its core line-up has remained stable since then, as a collective of musicians whose work spans idioms from classical and folk music to jazz, experimental music, and improvisation. Accordionist and zither virtuoso Kostas Vombolos has composed music for dozens of theatrical productions, providing an essential foundation for the orchestral settings in which Yannatou operates, as she moves between songs of different traditions. 

Oud player Giannis Alexandris also works as a luthier, and like violinist Kyriakos Gouventas, has extensive experience in rebetiko and traditional music. Bassist Michalis Siganidis is active in contemporary creative music and has recently released an album for bass and electronics. Haris Lambrakis has developed a new role for the ney within Primavera en Salonico, where this ancient wind instrument often functions as a lead instrument, responding directly to Yannatou’s voice. Lambrakis is also a featured soloist on Eleni Karaindrou’s album Medea. Percussionist Dine Doneff (also known as Kostas Theodorou), a multi-instrumentalist equally skilled on bass and guitar, is also featured. 

Lamia Bedioui, born in Tunis, has lived in Greece since 1992. In addition to her own projects and collaborations with Yannatou, she has performed in concerts with Jon Balke’s ensemble Siwan.

Maria Spivak is a musician and sound artist based in Cyprus. Her debut album, Μετά Το Ρέιβ, was released by Ecstatic Recordings in 2020. It was followed by Rare Backwards (2021) and You Win Again (2023). Her work has been described by the music site Boomkat as “a sparkling album operating at the intersection of blazed synthpop, folk and shoegaze.” She has toured in Europe and performed at venues such as Cafe OTO, Ormside Projects, Dampfzentrale, and Le Sample. Her work has been broadcast on BBC6, NTS, RinseFM, Kiosk Radio and other media.

Instagram Maria Spivak