Colourful Emptiness
Release date: July 8 2022
Vassilis Philippou - piano, compositions
Odysseas Toumazou - guitar
Savvas Lagou - violin
Marios Takoushis - recording, mixing, mastering
Johnny Avraamides - artwork, album design
Listen to Colourful Emptiness here!
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Album price including download links:
€10 (+ shipping)
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Studio promo video
Behind each composition that comprises Colourful Emptiness, lies the need to search for a sense of wholeness and serenity within the vastness of space and stillness of time. I wish the album will transmit this feeling to its listeners.
These pieces have gradually taken form over the course of the past ten years. Born as simple ideas on the piano, they naturally grew through experimentation and improvisation; inspired by my relationship with the people I love.
In playing and listening to those ideas, repeated cycles evolved in which I found myself wrapped with music that radiated an emotion of fulfilment.
The final compositions for piano, guitar and violin hold the simplicity and honesty of the initial inspiration and its emotions.
I am deeply grateful to be accompanied by two very close friends and talented musicians; Odysseas Toumazou on guitar and Savvas Lagou on violin, who embraced the music with love and approached these compositions artfully. I am also extremely thankful to Marios Takoushis who recorded and processed the sound with tasteful sensitivity, and Johnny Avraamides for his imaginative and detailed artwork and album design.
To my beloved grandfather, Nicholas.
Sol Aurorae - Released January 2021
Album Release Online Concert
Musicians:
Vassilis Philippou
Michalis Kouloumis
Giannis Koutis
Meir Gassenbauer
Michalis Messios
Guests:
Efrén López
Zacharias Spyridakis
Marianna Philippou
- voice, frame dr., tombak, req
- violin, viola
- oud, guitars
- ney
- double bass
- kopuz
- lyras
- narration
Album tracks:
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Aura I
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Sol Aurorae
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Dark-skinned beauty
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Olive tree
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A few words about you
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The letter
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Across the river
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Yearning
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Aura II…Amphilyke
The first album of Vassilis Philippou, entitled ‘Sol Aurorae’ (dawn sun), consists of nine compositions, of which six are based on poems written by him; five in the Cypriot dialect and one in Greek.
For the composer, the dawn sun is a continuous reminder of vitality and of inquiry; it is contact and communication with our fundamental emotions. This album emerged from a deep need to record and to share a part of his music-making, that is rooted in the culture of Cyprus – in the sounds of which she is composed and the words that portray her. It consists of compositions influenced by the musical traditions of the eastern Mediterranean, in which he has immersed himself both as a musician and as a devoted listener. The Cypriot dialect is central to these pieces, giving both meaning to the sound and shape to its expression.
The music of the album could be described with the term ‘Contemporary Modal Music’, which refers to the relationship and the direct connection of ancient ‘modes’; musical scales and rhythms, with a geographical interest in greater Middle East. The shaping of these musical traditions is the result of bonding and interaction between people from various cultures who met, communicated and lived together artistically.
Aesthetically, apart from the use of language, the music creation of the album has been accomplished in an idiomatic approach on composition and performance; in its structural material (scales, rhythms, forms) and its expression distinctiveness (melodic phraseology, improvisation).
© Odysseas Toumazou