Eleni and Souzana Vougioukli, two Greek world music performers, present their authentic and intense repertoire based mainly on the human voice as an innate musical instrument. Whether singing in multiple languages and dialects either a cappella or playing the piano, the guitar and percussions, they are in search of the deeper root to each song to enhance the primordial universal sound.
Their repertoire consists of traditional songs of various ethnic groups including rebetika and traditional Greek songs in all dialects including that of the Greek speaking community of Southern Italy, Portuguese fado, Spanish, Sepharadic, French, Italian, Romanian, Turkish, Arabic, Gypsy, American blues and jazz, Armenian, Serbian, Pomak and Bulgarian. All these songs stand out for their power of expression, their diachronic qualities both in terms of history and geography. Nevertheless, their own compositions lie in the nucleus of their performance and comprise a vital element of the final effect.
They have given concerts of ethnic, classical and traditional music in ancient theaters, castles, and even uniquely on a world train-theater ‘Treno sto Rouf’. Other venues include famous concert halls such as the Carnegie Hall-Weill Recital Hall in New York, and jazz clubs all over Greece, Cyprus, Switzerland, Bulgaria, USA, Italy, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Belgium, Turkey, Romania and even in the foothills of the Himalayans in Nepal.
They have worked with many well known artists including Maria Farantouri at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Goran Bregovic in Filippi Ancient Theater, Loudovikos ton Anoyion, Psarantonis and Elias Andriopoulos at the little Theatre of Ancient Epidaurus.
ELENI VOUGIOUKLI
Eleni was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and grew up in Xanthi. An Arts graduate in Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies of the University of Macedonia, she has also studied piano, music theory and classical singing, as well as byzantine and jazz music. She is fluent in English, French and Turkish, and with a sprinkling of some Arabic, Russian and Italian.
SOUZANA VOUGIOUKLI
Souzana was born and raised in Xanthi, Greece and graduated with a major in Pure Mathematics from the Mathematics Department of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. She has studied piano from the age of four, guitar, advanced theory and classical singing, as well as jazz – singing and theory. Souzana is also involved in composition, music and songs. Multi-linguistic in English and French with a sprinkling of Italian and Portuguese. The study of the relationship between music and mathematics is of great interest to her, and it is her life-long desire to continue to conduct further research in these topics.