Critical remarks on “PERIPLUS” in the Press
/PORTUGUÊS/ Comentários sobre o “PERIPLUS” na imprensa
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Σχόλια για τον “ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥ” στον πορτογαλικό Τύπο
GREECE IS HERE TO SING
Nuno Pacheco, “Público” – February 20, 2012
Amélia and Michales have completed the first intermusical voyage of the modern era between Portugal and Greece, doing what no-one else has done until now: strengthening links, interconnecting notes (the musical ones, because the others are rare), creating new itineraries with ancient routes as starting points…
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CIRCUM-NAVIGATION TOWARDS THE ROOTS OF THE FUTURE
Maria Ramos Silva, “i” – February 21, 2012
An innate understanding of musical affinities, generosity and contagious sense of humour. Amélia and Michales, a Portugal-Greece in the leadership of the championship of building bridges among peoples…
A cauldron of sounds where cultural affinities are cooked beyond the frontiers of crisis…
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LUSO-HELLENIC EPIC
Nuno Pacheco, “Público/Ípsilon” – February 24, 2012
Amélia Muge has made, together with Michales Loukovikas, the disc that no-one else has produced yet, uniting Portugal and Greece, Occident and Orient, past and future…
Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, in a time that the crisis sweeps Portugal and Greece, put in “Periplus” the vigour of the ancient epics, proposing a Luso-Hellenic musical voyage that encompasses, within the same adventure, other neighbouring cultures, from Asia to Africa…
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“Periplus”, an idea so dear to Amélia Muge, has been a risky bet since the beginning. Uniting cultures of the Mediterranean with neighbouring ones of the Atlantic and of the Indian oceans, mixing the Occident and the Orient without giving in to multicultural “pastiches” of dubious taste, demands an enormous dose of dedication, determination and knowledge. The touchstone came across Amélia in the link of Portugal and Greece, working with Michales Loukovikas (an excellent discovery) and sharing with him and a lot of musicians of great talent, Portuguese and Greeks, such an adventure. The result is a diamond polished to the point of almost perfection…
All this in a contemporary approach where the melodic and rhythmic lines of the two countries approximate, interconnect and challenge each other in a natural and fluid form, as if they have always been neighbours and conversed like that…
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WE ARE ALL GREEKS
João Lisboa, “Expresso/Atual” – February 25, 2012
A summit of Portuguese and Greek poets and musicians, presided by Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, in order to confirm the idea that much of what we are exists on the other side, as well…
Mediterranean, of course. Which had as a port of departure for its exploration the interest about the work of the Greek poet Ares Alexandrou… and was prolonged through an intuitive search of points of contact and common identity features that… one needs only to discover…
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PORTUGAL AND GREECE UNITED FOR ONE NIGHT IN LISBON
João Moço, “Diário de Notícias” – February 25, 2012
“Periplus”… much more than a mere collection of songs, is a musical voyage through Portuguese and Greek traditions, evoking also the ancient epics while the future is being gazed on…
This musical meeting between Portugal and Greece gains a double symbolism, as well, in a moment that both countries face intense social problems…
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DAEDALUS AND OTHER ACCOUNTS
Nuno Rogeiro, “Sábado” – March 1, 2012
For decades now, I have been following with interest the singular path of Amélia Muge between a mythical tradition and the “social” themes. But “Periplus, Luso-Hellenic Wanderings” is even more beautiful. Musicians and instruments, from here and from the Hellenic archipelagic peninsula, an Odyssey in sounds, the Mediterranean, real and imaginary, the Occident where Portugal reposes, dreams and suffers, with two grand ballads: “Heavy as Iron” and “Zum Zum”.
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AMÉLIA MUGE + MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS
João Miguel Tavares, “Time Out” – March 21, 2012
… There is an immense irony in the fact that “Periplus”, which has as a subtitle “Luso-Hellenic Wanderings”, celebrates that sort of Mediterranean umbilical cord linking Greece with Portugal at least since the myth of the foundation of Lisbon, that is attributed to Ulysses. Brothers in the economic bankruptcy, the two countries join forces here to celebrate their cultural wealth on the face of any austerity – Amélia Muge’s discs are a luxurious filigree of sounds, instruments and verses, and “Periplus” is no exception.
More than that: they are always anything but obvious. If she joins here forces with the Greek musician and composer Michales Loukovikas, it is not to create an euro-pudding with a braguesa guitar and a bouzouki. Yes, there is a braguesa guitar, and yes, there is a bouzouki, as there are traces of rebetiko and fado, there are Pessoa’s verses and Delphic hymns. But nothing is approached in a conventional way – quite the contrary, each track is an accumulation of surprises, as in “Shine”,(*) where Hélia Correia sings (yes, sings) in Greek, as for example in “The Foliage of a Rose”, a magnificent theme that sums up perfectly how it is possible to make a Luso-Galician-Greek patchwork without leaving a single seam on display…
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(*) It is the “Epitaph” composed by Seikilos sometime after the 2nd century BC; an epigram engraved on a cylindrical tombstone with lyrics and music (the symbols of the ancient Greek notation): that is, we have a song, the oldest extant complete song in the world. The tombstone was found in Aydin, ancient Tralles, nearby Ephesus, in Asia Minor. Our title derives from the first verse: While you live, shine…
One day we met Hélia Correia and, among other things, we told her that this “Epitaph” will be included in “Periplus”. To our great surprise, Hélia not only knew Seikilos’ composition (which most Greek musicians ignore), but she immediately began to sing it in ancient Greek! We then decided that Hélia was entitled to sing the “Epitaph” in the disc, as well…
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>> “PERIPLUS”: an interview to a Hellenic newspaper
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Our focus is the union of music and poetry, especially those of our countries, Portugal and Hellas. That is why most of those aboard Periplus are Portuguese and Greeks, although we are anything but an exclusive club: building bridges, opening windows, is our specialty, working together mainly via the internet.
Periplus CD 