General information
The choir “THE FRIENDS OF TRADITION” was founded in 2013 at the initiative of Panagiotis Theodorou, the pastor of Kryoneri. The Choir consists mainly of young people from Kryoneri, but it also includes several people from other neighbouring villages. Their love for Greek traditional music, hard work and the careful guidance of the Choir director, led to amazing performances to the delight of the audience.
One of the most important performances of the Choir took place on July 17, 2014, within the framework of the Cultural Week of Kryoneri, which was organised by the local Cultural Youth Association. The choir was accompanied by an orchestra of traditional instruments and was directed by Panagiotis Xenos, a respected music teacher in Kryoneri. The performance included folk traditional songs from all over Greece. The rhythms from Polis to Roumeli, from the Ionian and the Aegean coasts, to Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus, delighted the audience and made them burst into applause.
The Choir’s first music album
After many years of hard work, the Choir has released its first music album. Even if, at first, the Choir members had little musical knowledge, with the warm encouragement and guidance of Panagiotis Xenos, the choir coordinator, and Panagiotis Theodorou, the parish of Agia Triados Kryoneri, their work had won the hearts of the wider public in the region.
The album includes traditional songs, some of which are hundreds of years old, having been sung by the Choir’s great-grand fathers and mothers. The choir and the orchestra offered a unique interpretation to these songs, thus playing an important role in promoting and revitalising the local culture, with the participation of the whole local community.
We made it here, in the production of this album which we humbly present to you.
We made it here three years after the formation of our choir, which was initiated by the parish priest of the parish of Agia Triad of Kryoneri, Father Panagiotis Theodorou, who, together with the church council, continues to warmly support this effort. Our guide, the music teacher and conductor of the choir Panagiotis Xenos. All those who participate, men and women, residents of Kryoneri and the wider region, with little or no musical knowledge, but with a lot of fun, passion and soulfulness, we “dare” and present these songs to you. Songs that for hundreds of years, have been spoken by countless mouths of our people and now by our own. We hope we have stood worthy continuators, who against the dictates of the times, insist on the tradition of our land. Our aim is to continue, with even more gusto, to sing the beautiful songs of our homeland, which are made for and addressed to people of the merry-go-round.
WARM THANKS to the ELISSON Hostel in Kryoneri, Corinthia, where the recording was made.
