Turkey is not the first place that comes to mind when thinking about Greek music and the bouzouki. However, Andreas Sarantidis, a Greek musician from Thessaloniki, is doing his best to bring bouzouki to the hearts of modern Turks, bridging the two sides of the Aegean Sea.
Using places like the Greek publishing house “Istos” and the historic Pera sports club, this Greek musician from Thessaloniki is an example of how the two peoples can forge friendships despite geopolitical tensions, as music speaks a universal language.
Turkish students seem to love Greek music and the sound of bouzouki
Sarantidis, who inherited the passion for music from his clarinet-playing father and guitar-strumming uncle, finds his Turkish students utterly amazed by the sounds of bouzouki.
“The Turks are captivated by the bouzouki’s sound and never miss a lesson,” he told Greece’s state-run AMNA news agency. This is not as surprising as one might think, as Greeks and Turks share similar music trends and tastes.
As Sarantidis points out, Turkish culture boasts similar stringed instruments like the soulful saz, the resonant oud and the lafta. This similar tradition provides fertile ground for the Greek bouzouki to take root at the heart of Istanbul. His students, a mix of Turks and local Greeks from the small Greek community of Istanbul, follow his bilingual instruction book, “BUZUKIST,” trying to master the world-famous “Zorba’s Dance.”
Sarantidis began his adventure of becoming a bouzouki ambassador in 2014, when he received an offer to play bouzouki at a New Year’s Eve party in Istanbul, which he immediately accepted. This led to a summer season gig in Bodrum (Halicarnassus) the next year with the same orchestra. Before that season concluded, he was asked to stay in Istanbul permanently. During this period, he also started collaborating with Stelios Berberis and his ‘laiko-rebetiko’ group, Café Aman Istanbul.
Despite a brief return to Greece, Sarantidis found a new home in Istanbul in the form of his Turkish wife, Dilek. Now a father to twin boys and working within the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, his life is an example of how Greeks and Turks can live in harmony and peace.
His bouzouki talent us used in various opportunities, including state orchestras, theatre stages (like the award-winning “Zarifi Apartmani”), films (“Searching for Rodaki”) and collaborations with a number of Turkish artists. This Greek musician from Thessaloniki is now taking active part in the cultural life of Istanbul, proving the Greek bouzouki is far from an old and obsolete music instrument that belongs to the past.
