Cries

What music lies inside “the thought of the refugee, the thought of the prisoner, the thought of the man reduced to merchandise,” as the poet Giorgos Seferis wrote in The Last Stop, the wailing of Hecuba, soon to become a slave after the fall of Troy in Euripides’ The Trojan Women, or the woes of people who have experienced slavery throughout their lives?

Questions like these served as a guiding light in an intricate research process that sought to lead ancient and modern poetry, as well as music, to new, uncharted territory. In the process, a unified musical work was born, one that addresses timeless and universal human concerns.

Centred around the notions of slavery, uprooting, and immigration throughout time, Battle Cries is a performance that attends to the intersection and organic bond between poetry, Ancient Drama, melos (melody), and music.

Fragments of ancient tragedies, verses from demotic, modern Greek, and world poetry, as well as original texts, are fused into an original music score that bears the signature of Alexandros Drakos Ktistakis. The work is performed by the Alex Drakos Quartet, engaging in a vivid musical dialogue on stage with charismatic performers such as Christos Stergioglou—director of the performance, among others—and baritone opera singer Georgios Iatrou.