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Georgios Anamateros
Georgios Anamateros, alias Anamateur, is a pianist and vocalist who focuses on the repertoire of the Great American Songbook. His favourite composers / lyricists include Fats Waller / Andy Razaf, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwin bros and Duke Ellington. His interpretive approach is more akin to that of Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller.
Anamateur is also a "jazz auteur". So far, he has composed around 100 pieces (the vast majority of them with lyrics – mainly in English and Greek, but also in French, Portuguese, Italian and sometimes German and Russian), which make part of surreal, yet sharp, jazz musicals about the socio-political tragicomical situation of his native Greece: "One doubt arose in the mind of a noble vigilante", "To Pirulita with love", "Ἀνθ-'Ελλάδα 2021'" etc.
His accomplices in either performing jazz standards, or presenting musicals of his own, are the "Pros". Among them, are included distinguished jazz players of the Greek and Portuguese scenes, such as Priamos Morakis (guitar), Yannis Oikonomidis (trumpet), Yannis Kassetas (tenor saxophone), Eduardo Lála (trombone), Manos Loutas / Yiorgos Kostopoulos / Mario Franco (double bass), Serafim Bellos (drums), Marta Hugon / Monika Kabasele (voice).
Anamateros in "real" life is a civil engineer. And also a "whistleblowing engineer", since he is revealing top secret documents about the extremely scandalous privatisation of the Athens old airport by-the-sea area. So far he has escaped the usual consequences.
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"Anamateur is extremely passionate for the thing he does. He lives and breathes for it. He reminds us of a 1990s stand-up comedian, an illuminated preacher and at the same time one of the protagonists of Lars Von Trier's 'The Idiots'. The most interesting thing, though, is that all of these characteristics are real on him! He represents the man who keeps total faith in his ideals and acts accordingly. An engineer in real life and a pianist in this play, he directs his musicians - turning them into actors for the necessities of the play - as a contractor operating on his building site.
Burlesque aesthetics, cabaret jazz, prose, theatrical mood and intense flirt are the main elements of 'One doubt arose in the mind of a noble vigilante'. Apparently the ancient drama connects with the story of the play, since love, war (through contemporary means) and the doubt of the protagonist to take the right decision (and reveal his guilty secrets), all constitute the frame of the play. [...] Yes, this jazz musical has something romantically old fashioned, in the sense of 'discovering again from the beginning'." https://www.elculture.gr/anamateur/ (February 2012).
Music
Georgios Anamateros
Location: Athens
Instrument: Piano and vocals
Born: December 26, 1976
