The next Saint Leonards concert, brought to Hastings, by Max Baillie, will be Alkanna Graeca, on Sunday, 26 May at 5 pm, at Saint John the Evangelist, Brittany Road, TN38 ORD. Laurie Temple looks forward to another remarkable musical collaboration.
Alkanna Graeca is a vocal trio blending raw folk traditions from the Balkans, Mediterranean and Black Sea. Formed by Dunja Botic, Alexandra Achillea, and Irini Arabatzi, the trio’s music explores the rich cultural heritage of their homelands with a bold, boundary-pushing edge. Hailed as “rising stars of polyphonic singing”, they have been selling out venues, including London’s iconic jazz Café and drawing audiences across festival stages in the UK and Greece.
Irini’s voice, shaped by her Greek roots, and jazz and South American influences, has taken her to international stages. Dunja, a Serbian-Greek singer and actress, moves seamlessly between theatre and music, drawing inspiration from Maqam and World Folk. Alexandra’s background in classical, folk, and experimental music has carried her from opera houses to underground scenes. Together, they create a sound that is earthy, timeless and steeped in tradition–stripped bare and transformed through improvisation.
In this concert, at St John’s Church, they will be performing ancient songs from Greece, Albania and Serbia but this program will be interspersed with solo movements of Bach from the Violin Partitas, performed by Max Baillie. The sonatas and partitas for solo Violin among the greatest works ever written for the violin. Composed around 1720, they are remarkable for their emotional depth, technical brilliance and the way Bach creates the illusion of several voices playing at once on a single instrument. They are dance-based suites, blending elegance, energy and profound expression.
Max is the founder of Saint Leonards concerts and is an internationally acclaimed violinist, renowned for his expressive performances and collaborations across classical, folk, jazz and world music. A graduate of the Yehudi Menuhin school, he has worked with artists including Björk, Anoushka Shankar and Jacob Collier. He founded Saint Leonards Concerts in 2021, to bring world-class, live music to the local Hastings community. The concerts have quickly become a vibrant part of the town’s cultural life.
For more information about tickets, future programs and how to become a member, go to www.stlconcerts.co.uk
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