The Greeks in Calabria
Jennifer Knapp, Langara College
Nearly 3000 years ago, the poleis of Greece sent
colonists to explore and settle southern Italy and Sicily. In the centuries
following, these new cities grew rich and powerful, producing art and
architecture rivaling that of mainland Greece. In Calabria, not only is there
immense pride in their Greek origins, but a dialect preserving elements of
Greek is still spoken in some villages. This talk will focus on the evidence
for the ancient Greek cities of Calabria, especially during their period of
growth and strength, and how they displayed and maintained their cultural
identity. (Pictured are the Riace
Warriors - two full-size Greek bronzes of naked bearded warriors, cast about 460–450
BC and found in the sea near Riace in Calabria in
1972.)
Strings of the
Balkans: Lutes and Fiddles
Cathie Whitesides and Hank Bradley
Seattle musicians
Cathie and Hank have spent much of the past forty years actively seeking and
playing music from the fault zone between the cultural plates of Western Europe
and Asia Minor. Their
lecture-performance will provide examples of various ways in which the musical
collisions between Asian scales and Western harmonies have resolved into distinct
local idioms which have survived cultural conflicts and language differences
and have lasted for many generations.
They will explore similarities and differences between the string music
of Greece, Romania and the former Yugoslavia with fiddles and an assortment of
plucked and strummed instruments of the ‘lute’ family: bouzouki, baglama, guitar, and
tamburitsa. Hank & Cathie have long
performed in small groups devoted to social music within and for the cultures
of these regions and we are happy to welcome them to Vancouver.
