Sounds of Cyprus Presents Dialects | The Greek, Turkish, and Arabic Experience

Sounds of Cyprus, led by Grammy-nominated musician Peter Douskalis, returns to SNFL with a new concert and multilingual exploration "Dialects", featuring the musical traditions of Cyprus’ Greek-Cypriot, Turkish-Cypriot, and Maronite-Cypriot communities.

This event will take place in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor.

Sounds of Cyprus returns to SNFL with Dialects, a special cultural event that intertwines the musical traditions of Cyprus’ Greek-Cypriot, Turkish-Cypriot, and Maronite-Cypriot (Sanna Arabic) communities. The concert highlights newly composed and newly arranged Cypriot folk songs that bring together three dialects rarely heard together on the same stage, and almost never represented collectively in the diaspora. Drawing from oral histories, traditional forms, and lived experiences across communities, Dialects showcases a new suite of original arrangements created specifically for this project. 

The repertoire includes: newly composed folk songs in Sanna, a moribund Arabic dialect spoken by the Maronite community of Cyprus; hybrid reinterpretations of Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot melodies, blending dialects and musical idioms across cultural lines; and bilingual and trilingual arrangements that recontextualize familiar Cypriot sounds for contemporary New York audiences.

More than a heritage presentation, Dialects is a forward-looking artistic contribution that preserves an endangered dialect (Sanna) through new creative work while promoting bicommunal and tricommunal understanding and reimagining traditional Cypriot music for a modern, multicultural city. This group and project is supported under the auspices of the Consul General of the Republic of Cyprus in New York and is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts. It offers New Yorkers an opportunity to experience a debut of new Cypriot folk art created here in NYC.

To join the event in person | Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

ABOUT Sounds of Cyprus

Sounds of Cyprus is a Cypriot orchestra co-founded by Peter Douskalis and Elena Chris in New York City. The group performs the traditional music of Cyprus in varying orchestrations and styles that both consciously honor the time period of composition and period instruments as well as perform with a modern approach. Elena Chris, vocalist and Creative/Artistic Director of the group, sings the traditional songs in the Cypriot dialects of Greek, Turkish, and Arabic. Peter Douskalis, Project/Music Director, plays the laouto, oud, mandolin, and guitar in the group, switching between the proper instrument as needed for the authentic and modern orchestration of the pieces. Other instruments of the group are violin/viola (Alex Tasopoulos), contrabass (Erikos Vlesmas), pithkiavli and ney (Stavros Papadopoulos), percussion (Mark Katsaounis). This performance will include Sophie Zmorrod singing in the Maronite-Cypriot dialect. 

In 2016, Elena and Peter created the band Sounds of Cyprus with the aim of exploring the Cypriot musical culture as well as its distribution and dissemination. This band includes only Cypriot songs, often in a more contemporary approach but with traditional Cypriot musical instruments such as the laouto and the pithkiavli. Throughout each concert presentation, the group interjects stories and narratives about the musical instruments and their history, as well as to the history of the songs, dialect, and culture of Cyprus.

For more information about Sounds of Cyprus, their upcoming projects, and to become a community partner, visit www.soundsofcyprus.com.

ACCESSIBILITY NOTES

In-Person

• Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue.


• ASL interpretation and real-time captioning (CART) are available upon request. Please submit your request via this form or contact SNFL at least two weeks in advance.


• This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

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All programs are subject to change or cancellation. All events at The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library are subject to recording and photography. 

This Sounds of Cyprus performance is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and under the auspices of the Consul General of the Republic of Cyprus. Sounds of Cyprus is fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

The 7 Stories Up Series at SNFL is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).