Relive our Ancestors Sound!
Inspirer Y.K.
Yiorgos Kaloudis was born in Athens, but his family’s origins are from the islands Crete and Corfu.
He is a 4th generation Cretan Lyra player on his Cretan family’s side and 3rd generation cellist on his Corfu family’s side. A renowned cellist and composer, who is widely acknowledged for his improvisation skills and his musical interpretations. He has released 5 personal albums, the 4 of them with original compositions, in which the restless spirit in his colourful experimentations are clearly distinctive.
In his early teenage years while studying the cello, he frequently confused the sound of Lyra for the viola da gamba. Since then, he often thought it was a pity that Lyra was not technically made to play classical music.
After a journey of 12 years as a musician and having participated in numerous ensembles in diverse music genres, he revisited the question of his youth:
Why can’t Lyra play classical music?
Inspiration
It all started on 2004, while visiting Crete when he noticed that some traditional Cretan Lyra players used cello strings and consequently cello tuning on their Lyra. That was a “Eureka” moment; He immediately took a 3-string traditional Cretan Lyra in his hands and started playing “Minuets” from the J.S. Bach Cello Suites.
The issue that arose was that in order to play the Solo Cello Suites, he needed a 4th string, the low C of the cello. It took him 12 years of research and constant study to determine the prerequisites and necessary changes as well as the technique of both hands for his new Lyra.
His research included all the bibliography for bow techniques and musical interpretation around Bach’s Era, and how those techniques were used so that he could adjust them to his Lyra accordingly. Yiorgos Kaloudis even had two different Cretan Lyra designs crafted, putting in hundreds of hours of comparative methodology, analysis and adjustments, to conclude the sound for classical music and complete the musical interpretation of the J.S. Bach Solo Cello Suites on the 4-string Cretan Lyra.
In 2016, with his research and work matured, he finally releases his fourth album “J.S. Bach: Cello Suites on the Cretan Lyra” officially presenting the Classical Cretan Lyra to the public, for the very first time.