Ever since the early 1980s Mitsos Stavrakakis, Vassilis Stavrakakis and I have been working together and we continue to do so up until the present day. I have always considered this cooperation to be one of the most enjoyable and fruitful of my career. This is due primarily to the bond of love and friendship which we share and which results in my relationship with Crete and its music being profoundly affected by my relationship with these two remarkable individuals. Indeed whenever I am working on a piece of music in a Cretan form, I automatically hear in my imagination Vassilis' characteristic voice bringing the vibrant imagery of Mitsos' verse into vivid focus in my mind's eye. On this recording we are accompanied by three young and outstanding musicians, each with unique virtues which afford them a special place in the world of Cretan music. Giorgos Manolakis, a laouto player, singer, and composer, he is one of the most talented and capable musicians of his generation and definitely a person to watch out for as he is clearly destined to make a significant contribution to the further development of Cretan music. Giorgos manages to combine a deep knowledge of the Cretan musical tradition with a contemporary and very tasteful musical sensibility together with his remarkable virtuosity as an instrumentalist. All of these elements combine together in a profoundly creative musical activity which is always in a state of dynamic development and which frequently affords us with surprises Kelly Thoma has a completely unique approach to playing the Lyra which is very much her own and which opens up many new possibilities for this instrument with enormous, but as yet, largely unexplored potential. As a result of her longtime association with the Musical Workshop Labyrinth as one of its central figures, she has listen to and worked with many of the finest musicians of our age from an enormous variety of ethnic and regional backgrounds. All of this experience she di stills into compositions and improvisations in a singularly harmonious and inspired manner. Giannis Papatzanis has been exploring for many years the potential for a deeper involvement of percussion instruments in Cretan music. Up until fairly recently, instruments of percussion were afforded a very limited role in Cretan music, almost exclusively in the eastern Lasithi province. Giannis has experimented with various approaches and various instruments over the years seeking for the most suitable instrument and playing style for Cretan music before finally settling on an instrument which, since antiquity, has had a presence on Crete: the daoulaki, a small barrel drum played on the one side with two short wooden sticks. Giannis however has developed many new techniques for this instrument which, on the one hand, are absolutely compatible with the somewhat austere nature of Cretan music, and, on the other hand, highlight its unique idiomatic characteristics in the best possible way. Today Giannis has dozens of young students all over Crete as his playing style has become a reference point and benchmark for aspiring Cretan percussionists. We hope you enjoy the recording Ross Daly
