Katerina Fotinaki

Katerina Fotinaki ( Greek Κατερίνα Φωτεινάκη , born in Athens ) is a Greek guitarist , singer and songwriter . She belongs to the young generation of Greek diaspora artists in Paris and became known through her collaboration with Angélique Ionatos .

life and work

Katerina Fotinaki grew up in Athens. She studied Classical Philology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens with a diploma. During her studies she dealt with the rhythm and metrics of ancient poetry, especially Greek poetry . At the same time, she trained her soprano voice in workshops with Spyros Sakkas .

In 2005 she assisted in a production of the Orestie at the Festival d'Athènes , where Angélique Ionatos discovered her and invited her to participate in the staged revival of her composition Sappho de Mytilène in Belgium and Switzerland. Katerina Fotinaki left Greece in 2006. Since then she has lived in Paris and accompanies Ionatos with concert guitar and vocals in duets or in an ensemble at concerts. In 2008 she recorded an album with her. Her musical training she completed at the Conservatory of Gennevilliers , where u. a. Studied composition with Bernand Cavanna.

In December 2011 she won first prize for her song To Oniro (The Dream) based on a poem by Dionysios Solomos at a national songwriting competition in Athens organized by the Alexander Onassis Foundation . With this award, the project of her solo album Tzitzikia (Cicadas) was born, for which she set and interpreted poetry by contemporary Greek poets such as Odysseas Elytis as well as her own texts. Their singing and guitar playing is accompanied by bandoneon , harp and viola . She prefers ancient sources to the beauty of folklore, which do not separate song and poetry from myth and theater, wrote the French cultural magazine Les Inrockuptibles about the poetics of Katerina Fotenaki. Her singing is reminiscent of both the mysteries of antiquity and contemporary atonality and arouses curiosity about Greece, which was once one of the most important cultural centers in human history. Tzitzikia was voted one of the five best albums of the year in the world music category by Le Monde in 2014 .

Discography

• 2008: Comme un jardin la nuit (CD-DVD), guitar and vocal duet with Angélique Ionatos, Harmonia Mundi
• 2014: Tzitzikia / Les Cigales (CD), Harmonia Mundi

Web links

• Spell , website of her solo program (Engl./Fren.)
• Youtube channel from Katerina Fotinaki
• Katerina Fotinaki on Soundcloud
• Katerina Fotinaki at Accords Croisé

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Katerina Fotinaki, biography on the website of Angélique Ionatos
2. ↑ Katerina Fotinaki chante la Grèce , France Culture, April 14, 2013
3. ↑ (grk) "Les prix de la composition de chanson - fondation Onasis", culturenow.gr
4. ↑ Angélique Ionatos and Katerina Fotinaki. Les enchanteresses venues des Grèce , in: Paris-ci la culture. Le Magazine, No 3, January 2013, pp. 8–22 (pdf)
5. ↑ Louis-Julien Nicolaou: Le monde des musiques du monde (28), La poétique de Katerina Fotinaki. in: Les Inrockuptibles , online February 4, 2014
6. ↑ 2014 en musique: nos tympans font le bilan , Le Monde, December 30, 2014