Pianist Tatianna Papageorgiou, a Deree College professor, and soprano Lina Orfanou, who has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera of New York, gave a summer session recital that blended Jazz and Greek folk music and left students and professors applauding enthusiastically.

The recital on July 9 was a part of the Film Music course and took place in the events hall (across Starbucks) in the AG campus. Orfanou, a graduate of Princeton University, and Papageorgiou played From Hollywood to Theodorakis, spanning Hatzidakis, Theodorakis, and classic Jazz pieces from Hollywood films of the 1960s.

The audience enjoyed a mix of songs that, apart from their significance and success as film soundtracks, have historical importance for the Greeks, who see them as the songs of liberty and democracy, and associate them with the struggle against the military dictatorship that ended in 1974.

“I saw the people in the audience embracing the music and people crying in the first row. It was very touching,” said Orfanou.

Some people in the first row started to cry when Orfanou sang lyrics from the song Asma Asmaton in Hebrew, her mother’s language, in honor of the Jews who died in Mauthauzen, the concentration camp in Austria. The collection of poems bearing the title Mauthauzen was written by Yannis Kabanellis; Theodorakis later blended it into his music.

The Greek folk pieces, with their peculiar rhythms and ethnic elements, were knitted together by Papageorgiou and Orfanou and drew the audience to the lyrics of Theodorakis and Hatzidakis. The lyrics, pregnant with memories and images that stir the hearts of the generation of the Polytechnio, moved the audience members to clap to the rhythm of the music.

The recital gave the students enrolled in Film Music insight into the theory and history of film music that they had been studying during the summer session; it was an opportunity for the students to experience pieces that are considered to be classics.

“When a young person performs in front of people without pretence, true to her heart, she makes the audience come closer and become a part of the performance,” said Professor Effie Minakoulis, a Deree Music Department professor.

Cindy Trent, a Music Department professor, said the performance was valuable because that type of music gets little air time today: radio stations and television channels prefer Greek pop, so audiences are more familiar with hit songs that enjoy commercial success.

“It is very important to let different music genres influence your system and not just stick to one thing – listen to music out of the box”, said Trent.

The Deree audience opened its heart to the performance of Orfanou, who said she would love to play at the college again someday. She said her collaboration with Papageorgiou is flourishing, and their love for the same music makes her feel like they’re sisters.

For now, there have been only some unofficial plans for further cooperation between Orfanou and the Music Department said Trent. She also said they are thinking of doing together something in the fall with some acting and movement, and students singing in the background.