The rich, sad sound of Greek music–often heard over dinner in Greektown–may be familiar to many Chicagoans.
What is not well-known is the marvelous and sometimes fragile history of Greek musicians who brought their art to this country and developed it, first in immigrant cafes, later in clubs and even opera houses.
Greek music is the subject of an exhibit at the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center, in River North. Entitled “Return to Our Roots,” the exhibit chronicles more than 100 years of Greek music as it came to life in the homeland and later grew in many other places where Greeks migrated, such as Halsted Street.
The museum begins this story in the traditional Greek coffee house/nightclub, which in the late 1800s was dubbed “cafe aman.” (Aman means “mercy” in Turkish–musicians often cried “Aman! Aman!” as they sang.) Wherever Greeks lived, their men assembled at night in these small places to eat, drink and listen to a blend of music that was both homegrown and from places as distant as Asia Minor and even Romania.
“Return to Our Roots,” which continues through July 31, provides many vivid images of this musical culture. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a reconstruction of just such a cafe–it could be in Greece or in America–with plain wooden tables and traditional instruments such as laouto (lute), santouri (dulcimer) and clarinet, which is the most modern and most resonant of instruments used in characteristic wailing Greek melodies.
As a highlight of the “Roots” exhibit, the museum will also stage a concert of old Greek music at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Among the musicians performing Sunday is clarinetist Jim Stoyanoff, whose parents were from Greek Macedonia and who was attracted to the original Greektown–now displaced by the University of Illinois at Chicago–and drew inspiration from the old musicians, who had performed in the cafe aman era. They gave Stoyanoff lessons and taught him songs with origins in the villages of the old country.
The exhibit also explores the preservation of Greek music. A recording industry, for example, developed in the early 20th Century, even though many of the greatest folk musicians of Greece refused to be recorded. They feared, says Stoyanoff, that rivals would steal their style, or that if records were available their clients would not longer hire them to play live.
Fortunately, some musicians yielded to progress, and by the 1920s several American recording companies traveled to Athens, set up makeshift studios in hotels and cut scores of records that influenced Greek and Balkan music around the world.
Other turns in the road of Greek music are recalled in the photographs, programs, record covers and ephemera of the exhibit.
Today, traditional Greek music lives on, due in large part to the efforts of musicians like Stoyanoff, who is a clarinetist by avocation and a banker by profession. For the last two decades, he has made regular trips to the Greek hinterlands to meet and learn from some famous and not-so-famous Greek folk musicians of the last several generations.
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“Return to Our Roots” continues through July 31 at the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center, 400 N. Franklin St. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays. Admission is $5 on Thursdays and Fridays, and $2 on Wednesdays. (Admission is $10 for the Greek music concert at 3 p.m. Sunday.) Call 312-467-4622.
