Discography
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Why do I sing Asia Minor songs when I've been born and raised in Crete? An explanation, excerpt from my CD "My Precious Ruby and Sapphire: Songs and Tunes of Asia Minor."
“From all that’s good in humankind, words alone enthrall
uplifting each and every heart, solace bringing to all
and he who knows to craft with words is someone truly blessed
‘cause tears or smiles to eyes he’ll bring, forgetting all the rest.”
Erotokritos
A few words from me to you…
Whether you know me as friends or know me not at all,
you’re all probably wondering how someone born and raised in Crete (the village of Zouridi, Rethymnon, is where I hail from)
has come to sing Asia Minor songs. If those songs were the traditional Rizitika songs of Crete, there would be no reason for you to wonder. From time to time, I have wondered myself on that issue.
My curiosity was quenched some months ago when I accidentally ran into a wise witch (she must have been a sprite, no question about it) at one of Crete’s enchanting areas.
And after inadvertently putting a spell on her through my songs in the “beauteous garden” we were sitting, in the wee hours, I asked her to talk to me about:
“my errant fate that never heard of respite or of rest
and runs amok high up above putting me to the test.”
I asked her to explain to me why my fate
“hurls me up high yet seeks below,
shows me what’s sweet, poisons me though.”
And this is what the bewitched witch told me:
“In times of yore, in glorious times,
one of Byzantium’s young nobles you were
who came and settled in celebrated Crete.
That’s where your fate and noble face come from,
therefrom your songs and your angelic voice”.
I thanked the witch whose face, mien,
and words so wise had cast a spell on me,
and right at dawn, I turned and frankly said:
Do let me go, temptress and witch of love,
do let me go, exile myself back to my own homeland.
Ibidadieu, beforeIgo, akissIgive to her,
a song I sing, worthy of such beauty
and that’s when both she and I our minds we lost…
Today, as times are changingrighthereinCrete,
I often sing songs of olden days.
And just as they came to me, I hand them down
to those whose nobleness of heart is rivaled
only by their word and actions, bidding them
to remember and honor too “the land of toil and blood”.
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MY PRECIOUS RUBY AND SAPPHIRE
Lyrics: Thomas Venakis
Date of publication: 20/12/2013
REVIEW of the MUSIC WORK from the VINYLMINE web site
two CDs with Greek songs
After a long interval on Vinylmine, two albums of songs in Greek, from a company (Metronomos) which insists on ... Helleno-Hellenic.
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THOMAS JOSEPH VENAKIS: My Precious Ruby and Sapphire / Asia Minor songs [Metronomos, 2014]
With a doctorate in Chemistry, the Cretan Thomas Joseph Venakis is a singer in a tradition - an exceptional singer (tenor) in a tradition, who, having served his apprenticeship with the husband and wife Simon and Angeliki Karas (he was a member of the Demotic Song Choir of Simon Karas), now comes, many years later - today, that is - to give his own personal 'take' on a body of songs which, though generally described as being from 'Asia Minor', in reality (also) hail from the Dodecanese, the north-eastern Aegean, Pontus, and the Propontis. Venakis's interpretative approach involves, basically, knowledge, character, and virtue; features, that is, which go together and complement one another. His engagement, for years now, with this subject allows him to be as 'personal' as is necessary, so that he interprets these marvellous songs in such a way that they retain, always, their greatness. Because this is the most important thing that I can write about 'My Precious Ruby and Sapphire' ... the fact that we hear 'At the High Windows', 'From Your Sweet Eyes', 'I've Told You and I Tell You Again', and all the rest, purged of the fripperies of certain singers with 'a name but no village', (such-and-such singers), who sing 'whatever', tossing one or two traditional items into their programmes (because that's what they grew up with ... ).
I have no more to say about this wonderful CD (in any case, all the information is available in the 56-page booklet), which makes the most natural, and unexpected, listening. I should note, only, the names of the musicians who accompany Thomas Joseph Venakis on this unique journey into the past of our song. Manolis Karpathios, kanun, Stratis Psaradelis, Constantinople lyre, Periklis Papapetropoulos, Constantinople lute, and Yorghis Tzanetos, percussion.
Contact: www.metronomos.gr
Posted byΦΩΝΤΑΣ ΤΡΟΥΣΑΣ/ PHONTAS TROUSSAS
