Program

Hellenic-speaking peoples have ancient roots in Asia Minor, also known as Anatolia, a region that covers present-day Turkey. During the Ottoman Empire, modern port cities like Smyrna and Constantinople were international hubs of culture and commerce, with rich musical traditions that reflected their diverse populations: Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, Roma, Jews and people from across Europe, Africa and Asia. Neapolitan songs, waltzes, opera, and the melismatic Café Aman tradition all made up the musical fabric of these places. A style known as smyrneika, meaning from Smyrna, emerged from this cosmopolitan milieu and could be heard in taverns and cafes. 

The concept for Uproot started in 2022 at the centennial of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe, one of the most tragic events in Modern Greek history. With the demise of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Greek and Turkish nationalism, the two nationalist armies went to war, and in Asia Minor in late 1922, led to the mass atrocities and expulsion of Greeks and other Christians. In September 1922, Smyrna was set on fire and the Greek and Armenian districts largely burned to the ground. My own ancestors were living in Smyrna at the time and managed to escape with their lives. Their only remaining possessions were their sacred icons, which my family still treasures to this day. Their story of survival and resilience is the driving force behind this project. In the process of arranging the songs, I was so moved at the realization that my great-grandparents likely knew these songs. This music has connected me to my ancestors and the rich life-worlds they inhabited, prior to and even through their experience of displacement. 

Rembetiko was a musical style that emerged in newly independent Greece in the 19th century. It’s an urbanized folk tradition that reflects the pain and malaise of the underworld, people who were marginalized to the fringes of society. Anatolian refugees often became part of the urban underworld and undoubtedly influenced rembetiko with their own experiences of longing and displacement. Dance traditions like the zeibekiko and the tsifteteli, now common elements in the genre, have their origins in Asia Minor. 

My friend and collaborator Katerina Clambaneva has worked closely with me to develop this program, lending her deep knowledge of rembetiko and her cultural expertise. Together, we have curated a rich program of traditional smyrneika songs from Asia Minor and rembetiko tunes from mainland Greece. Like memories, the songs go forward and backward in chronology, and also span different corners of the Aegean. It is my hope that these songs can act as portals into the joys and sorrows of refugees from one corner of the world, and resonate with a common refugee experience the world over.

Ellie Falaris Ganelin  •  Director, Kombos Collective

Katerina Clambaneva specializes in traditional and contemporary Greek music and performs internationally, throughout Europe and the United States. She is captivated by world music and is very interested in cultural fusion through musical expression. She has a versatile voice and enjoys singing in a multitude of languages. Katerina maintains a busy performance schedule participating in several groups including, PAKAW!, Plastikes Karekles, and the Josquin Singers of B.A.C.H. Cities she has performed in include Athens, San Francisco, Oakland, London, Isle of Wight, Ixtapa (Mexico), Brussels (Belgium), Istanbul, Luxembourg, Lesbos (Greece) and counting. Favorite venues include the National Theatre in London, the Green Note in Camden, ODC Theatre in San Francisco and 1002 Nihtes in Athens.

Career highlights as a vocalist include the dance production of Rebetiko with Yannis Adoniou’s KUNST-STOFF and music by Minos Matsas, with shows in Berlin and San Francisco and the film score for the Spanish film De Tu Ventana a la mia directed by Paula Ortiz with music composed by Avshalom Caspi. Katerina was born in San Francisco and raised in Athens, Greece. After completing her Bachelor of Arts in Classical Civilizations from UC Berkeley, she built her career in Arts Administration and Marketing. She has been living in London since 2009, where she completed her Masters in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Music at City University and currently works as a performing arts manager.

Ellie Falaris Ganelin is a flutist and music director who is classically trained and welcomes other traditions into the fold, including jazz, Latin, Balkan and klezmer music. She is active as a performer of chamber, orchestral and theater music in the San Francisco Bay Area. She recently performed in the pit for the national production of Mary Zimmerman’s Matchbox Magic Flute at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, with a stage appearance in costume. She is committed to making classical music inviting and accessible for all as an ambassador and performer for the Awesöme Orchestra Collective. For the past decade, she has been the director of the Kombos Collective. Ellie received her B.A. in Music from the University of Maryland, where she also holds a B.A. in Journalism and a Minor in French.

Pavlos Carvalho is a prize-winning musician in international music competitions in England, Italy (Carlo Soliva competition) Germany (Koblenz international chamber music competition) and Russia (Taneev competition). He has performed as a solo and chamber musician in venues such as the Purcell Room, Royal Albert Hall, Cadogan Hall and the Teatro dal Verme, Milan and has recorded for the BBC. Carvalho has regularly performed the complete Bach suites and Beethoven sonatas in the Brighton and Chichester festivals over the last years. He has performed concertos including Elgar, Dvorak, Schumann, Tchaikovsky Rococo variations, Saint-Saens, with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic, Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra Southern Pro Musica. Other highlights include performing in the presence of King Charles at Kensington palace and for Rostropovitch’s birthday celebrations.  

Carvalho is one of the founding members and Artistic director of Ensemble Reza and as such is also involved in many outreach and community projects. His involvement in outreach work has seen him collaborate with projects such as Music for Life, In Harmony, Pied Piper and Live Music Now. He is currently the director of the ProCorda cello courses. Carvalho has also given masterclasses and workshops for the London Cello Society and Cambridge University. He has a deep interest in world music and is a founding member and director of the Rebetiko Carnival, a charity and festival dedicated to the music of Greece and Asia minor. 

Andrew Quartermain is a pianist who has collaborated with some of the world’s leading artists and was a prize winner at the Guildhall where he studied after Cambridge. Quartermain has composed several works, including music for theatre and a new version of Scrooge! for schools. He regularly appears on a wide variety of media from TV to radio and is a regular contributor to BBC Children in Need. Quartermain is the Founder and Director of Piano Sanctuary, a piano and lifestyle company for adult pianists which provides online courses, weekend retreats, events, and unique concerts. His regular Piano Sanctuary On Air podcasts have thousands of listeners across the world.