Arapis, Giannis -& Themis Vasiliou-
Vasilaraps: Four Kaminetti For Guitar Duet
Rebetika and free-improvised gypsy jazz. 'Four Kaminetti For Guitar Duet' is a partnership between two young Greek guitarists Giannis Arapis and Themis Vasiliou. All rights of the musicology and biological research belong to musicologist Sergei Kapiliev. Vasilaraps was a Greek composer of Ethiopian origin. He was an innovator composer of an unprecedented musical style, combining elements of the Greek rebetiko with atonality and 12-note technique. He was born on the 10th of May, 1905 in the suburb Skali (Ano Chora, Syros) with royal roots of the Aksumite kingdom, hence his name. In 1920, he moved to Athens where he got involved with the hangouts of rebetiko music. Soon, he became a virtuoso of the greek folk guitar, but without recording any of his music. In 1935 he decided to study composition near the famous Dmitri Shostakovich in Moscow, where he settled for the rest of his life (as we can guess). From that moment he changed radically and got fully integrated into the artistic circles of the country and more generally in the local way of life. However, few years later, after he had composed several works (most of them for guitar ensembles) he got suffered from depression and due to this hard situation, he walked away from the musical foreground. From this point onwards we have zero information about the rest of his life and activities. Probably, he's not even alive for years now. A serious musicologic research lights on some authentic manuscripts, scores and rare recordings in reel and cylinder. A basic source comes from the grand daughter of an old friend of his. "We thought, it will be unthinkable not to perform these works for guitar and finally, we got together and recorded those" as Giannis and Themis, characteristically state. "His work allows us to designate it in two significant periods of his style : The first one which is thearly period and the second one which follows the late period of his work."