Stelios Vamvakaris, Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand)

Despite his humble beginnings, the sometime dockworker, miner and shoeshine boy Markos Vamvakaris – born in 1905 on the Aegean island of Syros - followed his dream to become a musician. And such was the influence of his songwriting that he is now widely acknowledged as ‘the Patriarch of Rebetiko’ – the underground, urban folk music of the 1920s and 30s that has come to symbolise so much of Greece, both to itself and to the rest of the world. Often dealing with the hardships of immigrant life, petty crime and drug taking, and banned by state institutions for being degenerate, rebetiko was true underground music of its time and many of its proponents, the rebetis, spent time in jail.

Premiered in 2012 as part of the Hellenic Festival in Athens, on the 40th anniversary of Vamvakaris’ death, this multimedia concert tribute to the man and his music is curated by Lina Nikolakopoulou, one of Greece’s best-known lyricists.The performance, accompanied by specially created film footage, features a stellar line-up of Greek musicians: bouzouki player Stelios Vamvakaris – the son of Markos – as well as Yannis Kotsiras, Sofia Papazoglou and Evelina Aggelou accompanied by a 7-piece orchestra. The music will be interspersed with readings from Vamvakaris’ diary, recited by Franz Ferdinand frontman of Greek descent Alex Kapranos.