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Alekos Karavitis
Alekos Karavitis (, 1904–1975) was a Cretan lyra player. Karavitis was born in Aktounta, a small village in the region of Aghios Vasileios, prefecture of Rethymnon in the Cretan State. A talented child, he very early fell in love with and started learning to play the lyra, an instrument at the heart of Cretan music, a descendant of the ancient string mini-harp of Apollo. At the age of 24, he married Chryssoula Gartzolaki from the nearby village of Yanniou and moved to Athens. They had three children, two girls and a boy. He became a virtuoso of the lyra and developed the ambition of spreading his island's music throughout the world. He even composed his own melodies, which became widely known. Although he was self-employed in various businesses, every year in Athens he staged the very successful "Festival of Lyra." His passion for Cretan music also spurred him to coordinate international presentations of Greek folk music and dance, bringing together famous societies of the ti ...
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Aktounta
Aktounta () is a village in the Rethymno regional unit in Crete, Greece. Aktounta belongs to the municipal unit of Lampi in the municipality of Agios Vasileios and it is 35 km away (south) from Rethymno. Population: 57 (2021). Altitude: 640 meters. History Aktounta's history has been extensively studied by Emmanuel Dimitrakakis and presented in the "Aktounta and its history" book. Notable people from Aktounta * Alekos Karavitis Alekos Karavitis (, 1904–1975) was a Cretan lyra player. Karavitis was born in Aktounta, a small village in the region of Aghios Vasileios, prefecture of Rethymnon in the Cretan State. A talented child, he very early fell in love with and sta ..., Cretan music composer. * Emmanuel Dimitrakakis, teacher and folklorer, awarded for his work by the Academy of Athens. * Constantine Dimitrakakis, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of AthenΒιογραφικό,Κωνσταντίνος Δημητρακάκης,Γυναικολόγος χε� ...
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Lyra (Byzantine)
The Byzantine lyra or lira () was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping the strings from the side with the fingertips and fingernails. The oldest known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket, dated to circa 900–1100 AD, preserved in the Bargello in Florence (''Museo Nazionale, Florence, Coll. Carrand, No.26''). Modern variants of the lyra are still played throughout the Balkans and in areas surrounding the Black Sea (and most of the historical territories of the Byzantine Empire), including Greece, Crete (Cretan lyra), Karpathos (Karpathian lyra), Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria (the '' gadulka''), North Macedonia, Croatia ( Dalmatian '' lijerica''), Italy (the Calabrian lira), Turkey (the '' politiki lyra'' and the Pontic lyra or ''kemençe'') and Armenia. History The most likely o ...
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Greek Laïko Singers
Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek **Mycenaean Greek, most ancient attested form of the language (16th to 11th centuries BC) **Ancient Greek, forms of the language used c. 1000–330 BC **Koine Greek, common form of Greek spoken and written during Classical antiquity **Medieval Greek or Byzantine Language, language used between the Middle Ages and the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople **Modern Greek, varieties spoken in the modern era (from 1453 AD) *Greek alphabet, script used to write the Greek language *Greek Orthodox Church, several Churches of the Eastern Orthodox Church *Ancient Greece, the ancient civilization before the end of Antiquity * Old Greek, the language as spoken from Late Antiquity to around 1500 AD *Greek mythology, a body of myths o ...
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Cretan Musicians
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete is located about south of the Peloponnese, and about southwest of Anatolia. Crete has an area of and a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi). It bounds the southern border of the Aegean Sea, with the Sea of Crete (or North Cretan Sea) to the north and the Libyan Sea (or South Cretan Sea) to the south. Crete covers 260 km from west to east but is narrow from north to south, spanning three longitudes but only half a latitude. Crete and a number of islands and islets that surround it constitute the Region of Crete (), which is the southernmost of the 13 Modern regions of Greece, top-level administrative units of Greece, and the fifth most popu ...
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1975 Deaths
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up. * January 2 ** The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress. ** A bomb blast at Samastipur, Bihar, India, fatally wounds Lalit Narayan Mishra, Minister of Railways. * January 5 – Tasman Bridge disaster: The Tasman Bridge in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier , causing a partial collapse resulting in 12 deaths. * January 15 – Alvor Agreement: Portugal announces that it will grant independence to Angola on November 11. * January 20 ** In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Politburo approves the final military offensive against South Vietnam. ** Work is abandoned on the 1974 Anglo-French Channel Tunnel scheme. * January ...
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1904 Births
Events January * January 7 – The distress signal ''CQD'' is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by ''SOS''. * January 8 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system. * January 12 – The Herero Wars in German South West Africa begin. * January 17 – Anton Chekhov's last play, ''The Cherry Orchard'' («Вишнëвый сад», ''Vishnevyi sad''), opens at the Moscow Art Theatre directed by Constantin Stanislavski, 6 month's before the author's death. * January 23 – The Ålesund fire destroys most buildings in the town of Ålesund, Norway, leaving about 10,000 people without shelter. * January 25 – Halford Mackinder presents a paper on "The Geographical Pivot of History" to the Royal Geographical Society of London in which he formulates the Heartland Theory, originating the study of geopolitics. February * February 7 – The Great Baltimore Fire in Baltimore, Maryland, destroys over 1,500 build ...
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Music Of Crete
The music of Crete (, ), also called kritika (), refers to traditional forms of Greek folk music prevalent on the island of Crete in Greece. Cretan traditional music includes instrumental music (generally also involving singing), a capella songs known as the rizitika, "Erotokritos," Cretan urban songs (tabachaniotika), as well as other miscellaneous songs and folk genres (lullabies, ritual laments, etc.). Historically, there have been significant variations in the music across the island (more violin than lyra in far Eastern and Western Crete, a preference for the ''syrtos'' in Western Crete and ''kondylies'' in Eastern Crete). Some of this variation continues today and in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries has received greater attention by scholars and the mass media. Nonetheless, over the course of the twentieth-century, the sense of a single, island-wide Cretan musical tradition emerged. Although much Cretan music remains consciously close to its folk roots ...
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Lyra (Cretan)
The Cretan lyra () is a pear-shaped three-stringed Greek Violin, a traditional musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece. The Cretan lyra is considered to be the most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra, an ancestor of most European bowed instruments. Playing style The lyra is held vertically on the player's lap, in the same way as a small viol, rather than being placed under the chin of the player like a violin. For normal right-handed playing, the player's right hand holds the bow. The strings are stopped by pressing the fingernails of the player's left hand against the side of the string, rather than by pressing the string against the fingerboard. This gives it a different tone from the violin. Older lyras (lyrakis) have one string which is normally not fingered and is used as a drone, playing the same note while tunes are played on the other two strings Origins ...
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Gina Bachauer
Gina Bachauer (Greek: Τζίνα Μπαχάουερ; May 21, 1913, AthensAugust 22, 1976, Athens) was a Greek classical pianist who toured extensively in the United States and Europe. Interested in piano at a young age, Bachauer graduated from the Athens Conservatory and studied under Alfred Cortot and Sergei Rachmaninoff. She is best known for playing Romantic piano concertos. She played hundreds of concerts for the Allied troops in the Middle East during World War II while she lived in Egypt. She spent a lot of time touring the United States and Europe, giving over 100 concerts each year. Bachauer also recorded extensively, both as a soloist and with orchestras. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Utah. During her career she was called the "queen of pianists". The Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation was named in honor of her contributions to the musical world. In her personal life, Bachauer married music conductor Alec Sherman, who became her m ...
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Cretan State
The Cretan State (; ) was an autonomous state governing the island of Crete from 1898 to 1913, under ''de jure'' suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire but with ''de facto'' independence secured by European Great Powers. In 1897, the Cretan Revolt (1897–1898), Cretan Revolt led the Ottoman Empire to Greco-Turkish War (1897), declare war on Kingdom of Greece, Greece, which led the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, Kingdom of Italy, Italy and Russian Empire, Russia to intervene on the grounds that the Ottoman Empire could no longer maintain control. The Cretan State was the prelude to the island's final annexation to the Kingdom of Greece, which occurred ''de facto'' in 1908 and ''de jure'' in 1913 after the First Balkan War. History Background The island of Crete, an Ottoman possession since the end of the Cretan War (1645–1669), was inhabited by a mostly Greek-speaking population, whose majority was Christian. During and a ...
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Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's greatest living travel writer, on the basis of books such as '' A Time of Gifts'' (1977).Smith, Helen"Literary legend learning to type at 92" ''The Guardian'' (2 March 2007). A BBC journalist once termed him "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene". Early life and education Leigh Fermor was born in London, the son of Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor, a distinguished geologist, and Muriel Aeyleen (Eileen), daughter of Charles Taafe Ambler. His mother added the "Leigh" before "Fermor" in his surname, although it was not a true double-barrelled name. Shortly after his birth, his mother and sister left to join his father in India, leaving the infant Patrick in England with a family in Northamptonshire: first in the village of Weedon, an ...
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UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International security, security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It has 194 Member states of UNESCO, member states and 12 associate members, as well as partners in the Non-governmental organization, non-governmental, Intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental and private sector. Headquartered in Paris, France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 National Commissions for UNESCO, national commissions. UNESCO was founded in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.English summary). UNESCO's founding mission, which was shaped by the events of World War II, is to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights by facilitating collaboratio ...
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