Fantasia - Evagoras Karageorgis

Taken from Evagoras Karageorgis' 1987 album KENTHMATA, re-released edition by Moneda.

Evagoras Karageorgis was born in 1957 in Tsada, a village in the district of Pafos, Cyprus in a family of musicians and instrumentalists, which exposed him early on to traditional Cypriot music. Having learned various instruments he decided to pursue Composition studies at Queen’s College (CUNY). Between his studies and working as a musician in Astoria, Queens, he also composed KENTHMATA. Firstly, between February 1987-88 at his home studio and then rerecorded between August-September 1988 at Harmonic Ranch Studio, the album was kept mostly secret until it was self-released 30 years later, in 2017, on CD.

There are many reasons why KENTHMATA never received the attention it deserved, despite the fact that Karageorgis went on to distinguish himself as a pioneer of Cypriot new music by—amongst other things—being one of the few songwriters to use the Cypriot dialect in his work. These range from the personal circumstances of the composer, to the historical and cultural conditions that defined, and continue to define, the relationship between the so-called ‘center’ and ‘peripheries’ of artistic production.

Rather than getting into the specifics of the already contested, and overly-debated, historical narratives that have reduced modern Cyprus, and its culture, to a limited set of interpretation; or giving in to the industry’s “revivalist” temptation of repressing as a way of rectifying said narratives, we have chosen instead to look at the re-release of KENTHMATA as a new work in its own right. A work that oscillates, between its time of production and the time of its revival, weaving together past and present, myth and fact. It is still as relevant as it was then and we hope for many years to come.

Released May 1, 2020

Composed and arranged by Evagoras Karageorgis.
Re-mastered by Marco Spaventi (Tracks 1-10)
Embroidery design by Nefeli Papadaniel-Karageorgis
Design by Charlotte Taillet and Joel Colover
Original embroidery screen printed at Kimonos Art Center
Art direction, Edition, Compilation: Emiddio Vasquez