Αλέκος Κοντός
The Ionian School of Painting / D.Dragatakis(oboe conc. Part 1 of 2)
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DRAGATAKIS, DIMITRIS
(1914 - 2001)
The Greek composer Dimitris Dragatakis was born on 22 January 1914 in Platanousa, a remote, mountain village in Epirus, and died in Athens at the age of 87 on 18th December 2001. His musical interest was obvious from a very early age, using what nature provided, such as leaves and stalks, to fashion instruments. Later he studied music formally at the National Conservatory of Athens, with an interruption during World War II and the ensuing civil war, completing his studies in 1955. For many decades he played the viola in the orchestra of the Greek National Opera and taught violin and music theory at the National Conservatory.
In the 1950s he took up musical composition systematically, creating from that time to the end of his life more than 130 instrumental, vocal, scenic and electronic works, with the main body of his musical output consisting of orchestral and chamber music. He received numerous awards and prizes for his work, the first being in 1958 from the Greek Composers Union, followed by many others, such as the Maria Callas Award from the Third Program of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation in 1997 and the prestigious G.A. Papaioannou Award from the Academy of Athens in 1999.
In March 2001 he was appointed lifelong Emeritus President of the Greek Composers Union, having served as Vice-President for the previous six years. The works of Dragatakis have been performed in Greece and abroad, and many compositions of his have been published and recorded.
Dimitris Dragatakis studied music theory under Leonidas Zoras and Manolis Kalomiris, both composers who belong to the Greek National School of Composition. Nevertheless his musical language was formed independently of his teachers, based mainly on two elements: his close relationship with the Greek musical tradition of his birthplace and his personal interest in the musical trends of the mid-twentieth century. More specifically, Dragatakis has combined selective elements of the musical traditions of Epirus (pentatonic scales, pedal notes, glissandos, and other elements) with the contemporary music of his age (free atonality, plain forms and rhythmic ostinatos, new instrumental combinations and sound effects, all derived mainly from post-modernism and minimalism). In this way a style of musical writing modern in concept but traditional in origin was gradually formed, establishing a new relationship with Greek musical tradition, unlike that of the Greek National School of Composition. As a whole the music of Dimitris Dragatakis is both simple and complex, modern and traditional, dramatically expressive and remarkably introverted.
THE IONIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING.
The Ionian islands or Heptanese from the 17th to the 19th century were under successive Venetian, French and English occupation. The relative freedom that the Heptanese people enjoyed compared with Ottoman ruled mainland Greece, and the vicinity and the cultural relationships with neighbouring Italy, resulted in the creation of the first modern art movement in Greece. Another reason for the regional blossoming of arts is the migration of artists from mainland Greece and especially Crete to the Heptanese wanting to avoid the Ottoman rule. In particular Crete from the 15th century and the sack of Constantinople until the 17th century, when it was occupied by the Ottomans in 1669, was the main cultural centre of Greece, as it was ruled by the Venetians who allowed and encouraged artistic work (See: Cretan School). The main representatives of the fusion of Heptanese and Cretan Schools are Michael Damaskinos, Dimitrios Moschos and George Moschos, Manolis Tzanes and Konstantinos Tzanes and Stefanos Tsangarolas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptanese_School
