Garden Stories: Smari – A thyme sings in the gardens of the Vorres Museum (Live)
Live music performance
The musical ensemble “Smari” live in the gardens of the Vorres Museum.
The ensemble takes its name from the thyme that grows in Attica, whose Latin name is Thymus Atticus and whose folk name is Smari. Its musicians draw inspiration from the Greek landscape and musical traditions, creating music in the present day. In their concert at the Vorres Museum, their music enters into dialogue with the Mediterranean landscape shaped by the diverse plant species found in its gardens. Just as the Vorres Museum houses in its collection objects from different parts of Greece, Smari gathers melodies and tunes from Thrace, Macedonia, and the Dodecanese, arranging them for an ensemble made up of both traditional and classical instruments. At the Vorres Museum, Smari finds a common ground: a meeting point between folk culture and contemporary creation.
Information
Garden Stories: Smari – A thyme sings in the gardens of the Vorres Museum (Live)
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026
Start time: 21:00
Admission: €10
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Tickets are available exclusively at the museum.
Bio
Smari
“Smari” is made up of six musicians who combine their musical influences from traditional Greek, Arab-Persian, and classical music. Two neys, lyra, cello, double bass, and voice form a flexible musical ensemble whose aim is to explore how the age-old musical traditions of Greece and the Middle East can have a place in the present day. Melodies that follow the modality of the Eastern Mediterranean coexist with contemporary harmony and free improvisation. Five instruments with sustained sound and one voice used as a musical instrument converse with one another, forming a small chamber orchestra. Smari explores different textures and unexpected consonances, creating a modal polyphony through new compositions inspired both by modal music and contemporary musical idioms. The ensemble has performed in concerts as part of the 1st and 2nd Festival of Worship Music organised by the Greek National Opera, at the School of Attic Drama in Elefsina, the Athens Concert Hall, and St Paul’s Anglican Church. It participated in the performance The Song of Kyra-Domnitsa, a commission by the Greek National Opera to composer Martha Mavroeidi for the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution, as well as in the performance Madre Salonico, with a libretto by Leon Nar. They have recorded the musical work Katalogi, composed by Martha Mavroeidi and based on the text of the Lament of the Virgin Mary, which was accompanied by footage from Zacharias Mavroeidis’s documentary In Her Body and released in the form of a music video.
Charis Lambrakis: ney
Nikos Paraoulakis: ney
Martha Mavroeidi: voice
Stratis Psaradellis: lyra
Giorgos Tamiolakis: cello
Giorgos Ventouris: double bass