Lyric
Stelios Petrakis
Stelios Petrakis’s Lyric is a 2026 chamber‑folk album that places the Cretan lyra at the center of an intimate, cross‑Mediterranean sound world. Across nine pieces and about 44 minutes, Petrakis uses the lyra and Cretan lute to weave together melodies and modes drawn from Crete, mainland Greece, Turkey, the Levant, and the Balkans, treating them less as “folklore” and more as living material for new composition. He’s joined by a small ensemble of virtuoso guests—among them singer Giorgis Xylouris, percussionist Bijan Chemirani, multi‑wind player Sylvain Barou, harpist Maëlle Duchemin, and others—who bring frame drums, uilleann pipes, zurna, kaval, harp, accordion, double bass, and guitars into the mix, giving the music a rich but finely detailed texture.
The album opens with “Astro Sti Gaza” (“Star in Gaza”), a slowly unfolding, drone‑based piece that Petrakis and his brother Yannis conceived as a wish for peace, setting the emotional tone: contemplative, sorrowful, but also luminous. Subsequent tracks such as “Nathenas,” “Aglianico,” and “Pukane” move between dance‑driven rhythms and more introspective modes, often starting from a simple lyra motif that gradually attracts countermelodies from flute, pipes, or harp and intricate hand‑drum patterns. Reviewers emphasize how fluidly Petrakis connects “pieces from near and far”—some close to Cretan tradition, others inspired by Turkish, Bulgarian, or broader Eastern Mediterranean sources—so that they feel united by a deep, shared musical language rather than presented as a tour of exotica.
Lyric
Stelios Petrakis
Stelios Petrakis’s Lyric is a 2026 chamber‑folk album that places the Cretan lyra at the center of an intimate, cross‑Mediterranean sound world. Across nine pieces and about 44 minutes, Petrakis uses the lyra and Cretan lute to weave together melodies and modes drawn from Crete, mainland Greece, Turkey, the Levant, and the Balkans, treating them less as “folklore” and more as living material for new composition. He’s joined by a small ensemble of virtuoso guests—among them singer Giorgis Xylouris, percussionist Bijan Chemirani, multi‑wind player Sylvain Barou, harpist Maëlle Duchemin, and others—who bring frame drums, uilleann pipes, zurna, kaval, harp, accordion, double bass, and guitars into the mix, giving the music a rich but finely detailed texture.
The album opens with “Astro Sti Gaza” (“Star in Gaza”), a slowly unfolding, drone‑based piece that Petrakis and his brother Yannis conceived as a wish for peace, setting the emotional tone: contemplative, sorrowful, but also luminous. Subsequent tracks such as “Nathenas,” “Aglianico,” and “Pukane” move between dance‑driven rhythms and more introspective modes, often starting from a simple lyra motif that gradually attracts countermelodies from flute, pipes, or harp and intricate hand‑drum patterns. Reviewers emphasize how fluidly Petrakis connects “pieces from near and far”—some close to Cretan tradition, others inspired by Turkish, Bulgarian, or broader Eastern Mediterranean sources—so that they feel united by a deep, shared musical language rather than presented as a tour of exotica.