A concert by famed Greek singer Maria Farantouri and jazz musician Charles Lloyd took place in a unique atmosphere at the Temple, in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York. Farantouri sung Happy Birthday for Lloyd’s 75th. The tenor saxophone titan spoke on stage with admiration about Greece, the Parthenon, Herodion and the country’s eternal light.
The concert, full of songs and melodies from all over the world, started with Lloyd presenting a sample of his long career. After this, the mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran filled the stage with African sounds.
Socratis Sinopoulos came on stage to play Pontic lyra. During this rich concert, different styles and periods of music where combined: jazz with the byzantine hymn, Theodorakis withtraditional Greek songs. Jason Moran played the piano, Reuben Rogers the bass and Eric Harland the drums.
After the concert Farantouri said “Ten years ago, when I met Charles at the Santa Barbara University of California, I couldn’t imagine that we would work together sometime. At that time, a Greek-American friend of mine, who sponsors of the Modern Greek Studies there, called Lloyd and said “come to listen to a Greek singer who sings Mikis Theodorakis’s songs, and traditional songs from the islands and Epire”.
Farantouri said also about Lloyd: “He has a wonderful relation with Greece. He has read Plato and Pythagoras, he admires the ancient heritage. He talks about Greece with love and admiration, and that’s the best for us, now that our country needs support. And wherever we go to play the critics write: this country that appears to fall apart, has the ability with its music, the representative artists of its long culture to make us feel proud of the Greek history and civilization”.
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