See the video

The participants:
Christos Hatzinasios – Illusion
We start with a male solo singer dressed in black with with jeans and of course an  half open shirt. Let’s not forget that we are in Greece! He has female dancers with him on stage who spend half of the time on the floor pretending to swim. It is a slow song which doesn’t come across as particular strong for the international contest.
Sunny Baltzis & Second Skin – Game Of Life
Now we switch to a female singer who is dressed very dramatic in black. She has a band with her who comes out when the chorus starts. At the beginning it was really slow, but the chorus turned out to have quite some rock elements to it. It is a mix of genres, but again it appears like this might not be what would serve Greece best in Oslo. Near the end she keeps singing Hahaha.
Manos Pyrovolakis – Kivotos Tou Noe (Noah’s Arc)
Third song is the first one tonight sung in Greek. We have a male singer with a banjo, a male rap singer and a female singer dressed in a short white dress. Both male singers were dressed in black. It has quite an ethnic sound to it and this would probably do well in the Balkan countries – and again it is quite a mix of genres.
George Alkaios & Friends – OPA
Here we have four male dancers that reveals a male lead singer. All of them are dressed in black which seems to be the colour in Greece at the moment. The dancers and the line with OPA being shouted makes you think a bit of Ruslana’s Wild Dances. A violin players joins the stage near the end of the song. Haven’t we seen that in almost all the national finals this year?
George Karadimos – Polemao (Fight)
The fifth song is a ballad performed by a male singer. He is dressed in dark grey trousers and a matching vest with a white shirt underneath. With so many of the other songs being quite a mix of genres this is more straight forward and he can actually sing quite well. With this year being quite a ballad year why not add this one to the list?
Melisses – Kinesos (Chinese)
A band now joined the stage. All bandmembers are dressed in black suits with white shirts. It is an up-tempo song which is on the line where it balance between being serious and a joke song. Some might think though that this would have been more suitable for the Junior Contest. The tune is quite familiar, but I can’t cope up with where I have heard it before.
Émigré – Touch Me Deep Inside
Last song from the Greek selection this year is almost the one sounding most like a Eurovision song – if there is such a thing. We have a female singer dressed in a short white dress which Lena Philipsson and Dana International will probably be fighting over. It is an uptempo song with hints of europop as we have seen many of in the contest – just not this year!

The show:
Rika Vagiannis and Tzeni Balatsinou hosted the Greek this evening. Last year Sakis Rouvas came 7th with This Is Our Night. The video from his Eurovision Song Contest performance was shown in the beginning of tonight’s shows. Jon Lilygreen & The Islanders came to Greece to perform his entry representing Cyprus with the song Life Looks Better In Spring. Anyone else thinking that him and Tom Dice from Belgium are going to have a lot of fun jamming a bit with their guitars in Oslo? The story about the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest is being told showing clips from Patricia Kaas, Jade and Alexander Rybak.
A dance routine includes seven big numbers and few seconds of singing – representing the seven songs participating tonight. Mind you, we were an hour into the show before the first song was performed.
After all the songs had been performed and showed in reprise guest singer Katerine Avgoustakis comes to stage together with her piono performing a balld – yes, 2010 is a ballad year if someone shouldn’t have noticed it. Afterwards she sings an uptempo song showing that she can do more – and quite strikingly that she appears stronger on stage than any of tonight’s participants.
Just as the voting lines were about to close Bulgaria’s representative for the Eurovision Song Contest in May Miro comes on stage. He is of course singing his entry called Angel Si Ti.
Greece at the Eurovision Song Contest:
Tonight’s winner will have a lot of pressure on the shoulders as Greece is in a very good streak having finished in top 10 at the Eurovision Song Contest final for the past six years. They joined the Contest in 1974 where Marinella sang Krasi, Thalasa Ke t’ agori Mu to 11th place. Their first and so far only victory came in 2005 where Helena Paparizou reached top position with My Number One.
For the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest Greece will be taking part in the first semi-final and if all goes well in the final they have never failed to reach.

Heibeli Island.

A protester and a protesting police officer applaud each other during the rally

Serious street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as tens of thousands demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government’s austerity measures.
Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as riot police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.
The violence spread after the end of the march to a nearby square, where police faced off with stone-throwing anarchists and suffocating clouds of tear gas sent patrons scurrying from open-air cafes.
Police say 16 suspected rioters were detained and two officers were injured.
Rioters used sledge hammers to smash the glass fronts of more than a dozen shops, banks, jewelers and a cinema. Youths also set fire to rubbish bins and a car, smashed bus stops, and chopped blocks off marble balustrades and building facades to use as projectiles.
Organizers said some 60,000 people took part in the protest. But an unofficial police estimate set the crowd at around 20,000 — including those that took part in a separate, peaceful march earlier Thursday. Police do not issue official crowd estimates for demonstrations.
Thursday’s strike — the second in a week — brought the country to a virtual standstill, grounding all flights and bringing public transport to a halt. State hospitals were left with emergency staff only and all news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country’s debt crisis.
Riot police made heavy use of tear gas during the start-and-stop clashes throughout the demonstration, including outside Parliament. Strikers and protesters banged drums and chanted slogans such as “no sacrifice for plutocracy,” and “real jobs, higher pay.” People draped banners from apartment buildings reading: “No more sacrifices, war against war.”
The demonstrators included hundreds of black-clad anarchists in crash helmets and ski masks, who repeatedly taunted and attacked riot police with stones and petrol bombs, at one point spraying officers with brown paint. Shopkeepers along the demonstration route hastily rolled down their shutters, while a few blocks away, people sat at outdoor restaurants, nonchalantly continuing their meals.
Tear gas wafted through the city center’s streets, sending businessmen in suits scurrying for cover, their eyes streaming.
Minor clashes also broke out in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where about 14,000 people marched through the center.

Noting that leaving one’s traditional environment is beneficial for one’s musical progression, Marinakis said, “It helps to go to another country, a strange country for you to meet different people [and] to have good musicians as teachers.”
Marinakis has a close relationship with his teacher, Ruhi Ayangil. The two have been teaching each other Greek and Turkish since Marinakis became Ayangil’s pupil.
Marinakis especially impressed his master during a December 2009 solo concert at Galata Club in Beyoğlu in which the Greek artist bucked tradition by playing works by living classical composers. Generally, classical musicians will only play works by the deceased.

“He tried to realize a new approach with this concert,” Ayangil said. “My ‘Giorgaki mou’ succeeded very well. I believe if he increases his abilities, he will become an eminent musician, not only in his homeland and Turkey, but all over the world.”
According to Celil Eldeniz, a friend of Goutanos and an opera singer in Greece for the past four years, said there is a difference between the musical environments of Greece and Istanbul.
“When I think of Greek culture, I always imagine a table. In the nights, they sit and we sing. Maybe this has its roots in Ancient Greek culture, this ideal theater audience with some people just silent,” Eldiniz said, noting that the Istanbul music scene has far more interaction between musicians and the audience.

The return of rembetiko
The rembetiko genre, which originated in Athens, İzmir and Istanbul in the mid-19th century, constitutes the largest point of contact between Turkish and Greek artists.
Tatavla Keyfi, Laterna, and Kafe Aman Istanbul, three rembetiko revivalists groups in Istanbul, feel their version of the genre is closer to the original than what is presently played in Greece, where it is often played with electric keyboards and equipment.

Istanbul’s music scene has many musicians who have learned to play from their parents and grandparents, according to Tatavla Keyfi frontman Haris Rigas.
He said the original rembetiko groups disseminated their music in the same peer-to-peer model that Turkish groups have always continued to use.
Tatavla Keyfi, which has one Greek member, two Turkish members and one Ukrainian, start their sets with songs in both Greek and Turkish. As the evening progresses, they play more obscure pieces.

Likewise, the all-Turkish band Laterna, which plays at the Beyoğlu dance club Araf, plays an eclectic and original collection of Armenian, Greek, Kurdish, Balkan, Alevi and Turkish. Like Tatavla Keyfi, their audience is mostly Turkish.
Though it eschews electronic enhancement like the other two bands, Kafe Aman Istanbul also has its own unique approach to rembetiko in mixing different Greek dances such as sirtaki, hasapiko and laika alongside Turkish music.

At the same time, the band generally performs at universities and schools while also holding the occasional seminar on rembetiko’s history.
Playing rembetiko music in Istanbul is very important for the city, according to Stelios Berberis, an Istanbul Greek and one of the Kafe Aman’s singers.

It not only represents Istanbul’s musical past but also reminds their audiences of themselves. “This town culture is a piece of Istanbul that has been lost,” Berberis said.
The seven-piece group of mostly Turkish musicians finds there is a demand for their music wherever they play. As with the other bands, the growth of groups like Kafe Aman Istanbul strengthens the city’s dynamic scene while helping chart the next evolutionary phase in the Istanbul’s music.
(source: hurriyet)

For this year the guest country will be Greece. The event will be launched by the Ambassador of Greece in Serbia, Demosthenes Stoidis. Guest speakers include the cultural advisor for the Center of Greek Culture Foundation in Belgrade, the Serbian Minister of Culture Mr. Bradic and the Director of the National Museum of Belgrade Mrs. Tsvetitsanin.

The event will feature 25 documentaries of archaeological content from 9 European countries. Greece will participate with three films:

“Made by Lysippos” (written and directed by Nick Fragias, produced by Fay Katsari, script AGON award 1996 and Forli people’s choice award 1996)

“Eleftherna – search for a lost reality” (written and directed by Memi Spyratou, produced by Labrakis Reasearch Foundation)

“The Erechteion through time” (written and directed by Athanasia Drakopoulos, produced by Acropolis Restoration Monument Service (ARMS)

Search the full schedule here

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