Nefeli Fasouli brings modern Athens to Australia on a journey of reunion – The Greek Herald

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Nefeli Fasouli has never visited Australia. Yet, when she speaks about her upcoming November trip, she describes it as a “journey of reunion”.

Since childhood, this distant country has been connected in her mind with relatives and people from her home region near Argos who made Australia their home. Now, the prospect of meeting Australia’s Greek community carries a sense of familiarity, even before the introductions have begun.

“I think of it more as a journey of reunion, in the broader sense. I’m coming to find people I feel as though I’ve lost,” she tells The Greek Herald.

“Most of the people from my area and my village went to Australia. That’s how I experience it. I’m coming to find those I’ve lost.”

Her first Australian tour, Athens After Dark, presented by Greek Fringe, will bring her to Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club on November 14 and Sydney’s Red Rattler Theatre on November 21.

Fasouli plans to stay for approximately two to three weeks, leaving time to explore beyond rehearsals and performances.

“I’m coming convinced that I’ll love it there and want to stay. And then how will I ever go back to Greece?” she says, a hint of playful regret colouring her distinctive voice.

Sightseeing is beginning to enter the itinerary, with the Blue Mountains already among the recommendations she has received. But the desire to visit Australia has always been rooted in something more personal.

“I had always dreamed of this trip, not so much for the sights, but because I would finally get to see my distant relatives.”

Having lived in New York, Fasouli has already experienced one expression of Greek identity outside Greece. This time, she is particularly interested in meeting her contemporaries in Australia, the second- and third-generation Greek Australians, and discovering how their relationship with Greek music and culture has evolved.

“I can’t wait to meet this whole Greek community that exists there. I can’t imagine, with all these cultural influences, what form it might have taken,” she says.

Connecting with younger audiences is a central ambition of Greek Fringe, although the performances are intended to bring generations together.

The songs of modern Athens

Nefeli Fasouli possesses something of the restless energy of the people who fascinated Jack Kerouac in his iconic novel On the Road — those who “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles”.

A creative firework herself, she is preparing to bring that energy to Australian stages, with songs that invite audiences to dance and lyrics that demand attention long after the music stops.

What, then, will she bring with her?

A programme drawing on diverse musical influences, Mediterranean songs and reinterpretations, but above all, her own repertoire. It is music she has developed with persistence, and she now feels that commitment is finding its audience.

“This year in particular, I really enjoyed my summer tour. I feel that people in Greece are now coming specifically to hear these songs. They’re not coming to hear traditional popular songs and, incidentally, two or three new ones. My own songs are the centre of my programme.”

It is this experience she wants to share with Australian audiences: Greek music that maintains its connection to popular tradition while searching for new forms of expression.

The Athens she describes still dances and celebrates to the sounds of laïko music, but those familiar rhythms now carry new lyrics, contemporary concerns and a range of musical influences.

Social themes have an established place in her repertoire.

The lyrics of Pyr, Gyni kai Thalassa (Fire, Woman and Sea) may surprise some listeners, particularly those raised with more traditional ideas about women’s roles.

Female empowerment features prominently in her work, alongside themes of displacement, migration and the refugee experience.

Yet Fasouli wants these subjects to reach listeners through the emotion and enjoyment of music rather than through lectures.

“For me to stand up and wag my finger, saying, ‘Listen to what needs to happen,’ I don’t think that speaks to anyone. Nor am I in a position to do that,” she explains.

“I want someone, while enjoying themselves, to also take away a couple of things. For me, that’s the perfect balance. I have a good time, but I leave with two or three things to think about on the way home. Things that concern me personally and my life, but also the wider world.”

Australian audiences will also hear Ma Baquad Balaki, a Lebanese love song included on her album Wyrd.

Fasouli discovered it through the voice of Palestinian singer Rola Azar, and her decision to perform it also became an expression of solidarity.

Yet in conversation, she returns to the simplicity of the song itself. One person longs for the person they love. How foreign can that emotion really be, even when the words are unfamiliar?

“Music is one, and emotions are universal. You can’t tell me you won’t listen to this song because it’s in Arabic. It’s a person crying for their partner and wanting to see them all day,” she says.

“We sing to bring people together,” wrote the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos.

In Fasouli’s understanding, that connection begins with something simple: recognising something of yourself in another person’s love, even when it is expressed in a language you do not understand.

Her choice to perform in other languages is also, she acknowledges, a way of challenging stereotypes.

She has not encountered negative reactions to the song itself. The objections she occasionally hears relate more broadly to her decision to sing in languages other than Greek.

“Sometimes the truth of a song rises above stereotypes,” she observes.

Rediscovering her music through new eyes

Her Australian performances will also offer Fasouli an opportunity to hear her own songs interpreted by other musicians.

For Marcel Proust, the true voyage of discovery lay in seeing the world through another person’s eyes.

Fasouli anticipates something similar from the musicians she will meet in Australia: the possibility of discovering new dimensions within songs she already knows intimately.

She will collaborate with musicians based in Australia, an arrangement initially prompted by practical considerations. Bringing her entire band from Greece would significantly increase the cost of the tour.

But what began as a logistical decision has become an artistic opportunity.

She has worked in a similar way in the United States, developing collaborations around her own material.

“It’s incredibly refreshing to hear my music played by other people, with different ideas and a fresh sound,” she says.

“I can’t wait to come and play with other musicians. Perhaps that’s the most important thing. That I’ll get to create my music all over again, from the beginning.”

Preparations are already underway from a distance, including work with a Greek Australian pianist involved in coordinating the musical arrangements.

Rather than feeling anxious about performing with unfamiliar musicians, Fasouli is curious about what the collaboration will produce.

That openness to reinvention exists alongside a less visible reality of her professional life.

Behind the performances and the images shared on social media are countless hours spent organising, making phone calls, attending meetings and planning what comes next.

And with that comes the constant pressure of sustaining a creative career.

“It’s always there, like the elephant in the room. What will I do next? How will I keep this going? It may look like I’m having a great time, and I genuinely am, but there’s always that weight.”

The word “career” still makes her somewhat hesitant. Yet when she considers her life from a distance, she recognises that almost everything revolves around music.

“I wake up in the morning and spend so many hours doing office work. How will I organise the next thing, the meetings, the rehearsals, and find time to write something? I work on it all day.”

Does managing all of this take time and energy away from the creative work itself?

Her answer is immediate.

“Yes, in capital letters.

“I’m still at the stage where I wake up and everything passes through me. So I experience these burnouts, and I realise they take me quite far away from the reason I started doing this in the first place.”

Her goal is to share more responsibilities, establish a better structure around her work and reclaim space for what she loves most: creating music.

For now, Australia awaits.

In November, Nefeli Fasouli will arrive with her songs, ready to meet the distant relatives of childhood stories, the people who left her village and the generations that followed them.

The distance will finally acquire familiar faces.

“I’m coming to find those I’ve lost,” she says.

Perhaps that is one of music’s most extraordinary gifts: its ability to make a first meeting feel like a homecoming.