Cretan music

Esmiya

New compositions drawn from the Cretan musical tradition.

Lyra · Laouto · Flute · Percussion · Double bass

The name

Esmiya

“Esmiya” stands for coexistence, for the need to come together, for communication, and for the meeting point from which a new ensemble is born. They experiment in the blending of timbres and in new compositions, anthologizing the Cretan musical tradition.

The music

The music of Esmiya

Esmiya begins in the Cretan musical tradition, and does not treat it as a style that only needs to be reproduced.

Traditional paths, rhythms, melodies and timbres are the starting point for new compositions and musical experiments. The lyra and the laouto stay at the core of the sound, while the flute, mandourakia, percussion and double bass widen that space and create new relationships between melody, rhythm and the harmonic ground of each phrase.

What matters is tradition as a living musical language: something that can be carried, transformed and heard again in a different way, while it still refers to Crete — and to roots from whichever part of Greece they come.

In Esmiya’s compositions, the memory of traditional music, each musician’s own expression, and a willingness to experiment exist together.

We are not trying to reconstruct the past.
We are trying to be in conversation with it.

Listen

Music

Esmiya’s music moves between tradition and new composition.

Each piece takes a different approach to musical elements of Crete — rhythms, melodic forms, modes and dance idioms — through our sound and our own point of view.

Malevyziotis

One of the characteristic dance rhythms of Crete, through the timbral prism of our Esmiya.

3:36

0:00 3:36
Protos syrtos · Madares · Lousakianos syrtos

A musical path through different traditional syrtos, each a foundational melody of the Cretan tradition.

7:40

0:00 7:40