What will happen:

A musical act with one singer and 3 instrumentalists on stage telling us an inspiring story about a girl challenging social norms in the time of long-long-ago, taking us on a musical journey with songs about navigating life through different shades of love. This concert features original poems by living Cypriot poets as well as traditional poems set to music.

The music creates a nostalgic and romantic yet spirited ambiance. The audience is invited to go on a fantastic adventure along with the singer and the musicians of the show, as they examine different shades of love: family love, love for life, love lost…

The music is a delicate blend of colourful harmonies, singable melodies, rhythms coming from Greek folk music (kalamatiano, zeibekiko) and less ordinary rhythms (11/8) and improvisation.

After his studies in the United Kingdom, where he played the flute, Yiasemides worked as a flautist and trombonist in various ensembles, such as Anglia Sinfonia, the ARU Big Band, the Grand Union Orchestra, as well as the Philharmonic Orchestra of United Arab Emirates. In Abu Dhabi he worked as a wind teacher at Aldar International Schools in Abu Dhabi, and has also taught flute in Greece, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Today he is a flute teacher at the European University of Cyprus and in Music High Schools of the island. In addition, he is an active musician of the classical, folk and experimental music scene of Cyprus. He is also a member of award-winning group Monsieur Doumani, which is one of the most successful bands of Cyprus internationally, with concerts throughout Europe, Cuba and India. Through Monsieur Doumani, Yiasemidis presents an innovative and unprecedented use of wind instruments in Cypriot music.

With studies in Music and Theatre, Maria Andreou is dedicated to art and is a multifaceted artist: as an actor, musician, song performer, and composer. She studied Acting at the drama school ‘Vladimiros Kafkaridis’ and graduated with honours. She received her first degree in Music from the University of Hull (UK) Kingdom) specialising in song and composition. She carried on with her postgraduate studies at the University of York (United Kingdom) where she was awarded a Master in Arts and PhD in Music Composition. As a singer, she participated in various concerts and music representations (Festival Faneromenis, 5 classical festivals music for young people, Cultural Capital Paphos 2017 etc.
As an actress, she participated among others at Ancient Greek Drama Festival (Troades, Electra,etc) and at Musical Theatre performances (Fiddler on the Roof etc). As a composer she wrote mainly Theatrical Music compositions and she won various competitions (1 st Prize – Yianni Papaioannou with her work Aeriko for alto Flute).

Andria Nicodemou (CY/BOS) is a multifaceted musician from Cyprus, specialising in the vibraphone, improvisation, interdisciplinary and interactive performances. Her music is characterised as “open-ended play”, where movement, theatricality and sound are equally important. She has collaborated with important artists such as Joe Morris, Anthony Coleman, Marty Ehrlich, Ikue Morri, Tayler Ho Bynum, Anne La Berge, Tatsuya Nakatani, Ab Baars, Gerald Cleaver, Gianni Lenoci, Ingrid Laubrock, Joe McPhee, Garrison Fewell, Laurence Cook, Guilermo Gregorio among others and she has performed at various venues and festivals worldwide.  Andria has published recordings with the Relative Pitch label in New York – “The Industry Of Entropy”, with Glacial Erratic Records the trio album “Raven” and with the Subcontinental Records the album “River Is Full”. Andria is the co-founder of the award-winning Thread Ensemble from the City of Boston, the founder of the non-profit organisation Make Music Cyprus aimed at the development of music education and the music scene in Cyprus, the International Special Projects Consultant for Make Music Alliance (USA), and the founder and curator of the Breach Festival dedicated to free improvisation and experimental music in Cyprus. 

Charalambos Chrysostomou comes from Kyra Morfou. He is an Electrical Engineer, a graduate of the Polytechnic School of the University of Patra. From 1981 to 1995 he worked as an Electrical Engineer on construction sites in Saudi Arabia and Cyprus. In 1995 he returned to Cyprus after being appointed Professor of Electrical Engineering. He retired in 2020 as an inspector with a rich writing career. He was involved in poetry when he was a student in Secondary School and University. Some of his poems are: Prayer of a Small Child, 21 Brides, In the Clouds, My island, Flight, etc. He also wrote a short story entitled “Green Line 1974” which describes a real event that happened next to him during the Turkish invasion of 1974, when he was serving as a Probationary Lieutenant. This short story was performed by the Shadanga Duo in November 19 ‘in Hjørring, Denmark at the Ode to the Wind festival as a musical act written by Rania Chrysostomou.
He is a self-taught painter, and likes to do wooden constructions. The poem 21 Brides was written in 1972 when he was in the 5th grade in Secondary School, influenced by the death of 21 students of the High School of Spili Rethymno in Crete. The poem In the Clouds is dedicated to his granddaughter Olivia. A different version of the poem was performed by Plektó Duo in Cyprus in 2020.

Mgr. MA Elena Gonata Ph.D., is a native Cypriot conductor and educator. She studied Music Education and the Art of Choral Conducting in the Czech Republic, orchestral conducting at the University of York, and in February 2022 she achieved her Ph.D. in Music Theory and Education at Charles University Prague. She has both classroom and choral education teaching experience, combined with multiple choral direction assignments. In April 2018, Elena Gonata completed her composition ‘Requiem’- A prayer for him, an acapella work for SSA choir, whose world premiere was held in November 2018 at Famagusta Gate, Nicosia. She relocated to Prague in August 2019 and since then, she belongs to the teaching staff of the Meridian International School. 
She started writing poetry when she was 16 years old and continues to write and set them to music. The poem If I Could (Αν μπορούσα) is part of a trilogy of poems and were written for her dad when he passed away. The poems were published in 2013 in the newspaper “Athlitiko Vima” (Sports Step) where he used to work.

Maria Kouvarou holds a PhD in Sociology of popular music and is currently at the University of Cyprus as a Research Specialist, studying topics related to the Cypriot popular music scene. She has released two poetry collections The Birth of the Bitch  (2017) and Travelling Still (2018), and the novel / literary psychograph Skiamachia (Blinding Shadows) (2019). Her short stories and poems have been included in various anthologies, while her texts have been distinguished in literary competitions. As an academic she has published articles in Popular Music and Society, Historia Critica, Popular Music, and Journal of Popular Music Studies. She is one of the founding members of the Collectiva Inanna artistic group, a member of the editorial team for Larnaka: The Anthology (2021) and a piano and song performer. Her poem “Ode to Love” was written in 2018.