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Eleni Karaindrou
Eleni Karaindrou: Concert in Athens
by John Kelman
For more than two decades, Eleni Karaindrou has been composing film scores for Theo Angelopoulos and releasing soundtracks on ECM, including Ulysses' Gaze (1995), with violist Kim Kashkashian, and Music for Films, where Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek performs music from the Greek film director's The Beekeeper (1986). Concert in Athens isn't Karaindrou's first live recording; 2006's Elegy of the Uprooting takes that honor, a two-CD retrospective culled from eleven Angelopoulos films and Karaindrou's 2002 theater score for Trojan Women. Concert ...
read moreEleni Karaindrou: Dust of Time
by John Kelman
For nearly 20 years Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou has been scoring the films of fellow countryman Theo Angelopoulos, perhaps the single greatest nod to ECM producer/label head Manfred Eicher's ongoing love of both music and film--and, in particular, the way the two, at their best, seamlessly intersect to create something bigger than either one alone. The most obvious and quoted instance of how music elevates film has been Bernard Hermann's memorable score to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)--in particular the infamous ...
read moreElegy of the Uprooting
by Nenad Georgievski
Eleni Karaindrou Elegy of the Uprooting ECM 2008
There haven't been many female film music composers throughout the history of film. This list is comprised of maybe 10-15 names, with the likes of Rachel Portman, Wendy Carlos, Jocelyn Pook, Lisa Gerrard and especially Eleni Karaindrou standing out. In fact, there aren't that many film music composers of either gender whose music can live outside the context of the moving pictures. On the ...
read moreEleni Karaindrou: Elegy of the Uprooting
by Nenad Georgievski
On Elegy of the Uprooting, composer extraordinaire Eleni Karaindrou has produced music of sublime beauty, peace and introspection. Supported by an enormous ensemble of 110 musicians--including an orchestra, choir, traditional music ensemble, and various soloists, including singer Maria Farantouri--she combines lush voice-like textures and patient soaring melodies to create timeless compositions that are both soothing and haunting. Just like many well-known film directors who have associated with certain composers (eg. Krzysztof Kieslowski and Zbigniew Preisner, Sergio Leone ...
read moreEleni Karaindrou: Elegy of the Uprooting
by John Kelman
Some film scores only work in conjunction with the movie. However, composers like Bernard Hermann and Ennio Morricone have created scores that also succeed as independent pieces of music. For over twenty years, Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou has been scoring films, most notably for director Theo Angelopoulos. For the past fifteen years ECM has been documenting her work on half a dozen records, including The Weeping Meadow (ECM, 2005).
Karaindou's music is often built around repetitive themes differentiated by an ...
read moreEleni Karaindrou: The Weeping Meadow
by John Kelman
For over twenty years Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou has been scoring the films of Theo Angelopoulos with a kind of sensitivity to script that has compelled Angelopoulos to write, Eleni Karaindrou's music doesn't accompany the images--it penetrates the images, it becomes an inextricable part of the images." While watching any Angelopoulos film that Karaindrou has scored--including earlier works like The Suspended Step of the Stork and the more recent Eternity and a Day--demonstrates just how accurate Angelopoulos' assessment is, what ...
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