What prompted you to create your team?
Plaza Ensemble:Â Our desire to engage in music, in collaboration with people who we can communicate with, and together bring the results of our work to the world.
You cover a wide range of music genres, from classical and jazz to Greek art music. Based on your experience, what is the kind of music that is now most popular in Greece?
P.E.:Â Because all of these kinds are likeable and loved by many, I think that we can’t really distinguish one. That is, even in tango concerts or others with songs of Manos Hadjidakis, we have a specific audience. Because we love every kind of music that we deal with, we make it our own and try to pass it on to the world, we cannot stand out any of them. Now, depending on what people like most, this is a flexible issue, as everything has its own audience, who embraces it and gives it reason to exist.
How is the music atmosphere in Greece? Do you find in it commercialization, recession, stagnation?
P.E.: Commercialization only. This answer is flawed, of course, but unfortunately, it’s true. There is a production, reproduction industry in concerts, etc., which music isn’t always the criterion itself, but other things, such as eccentric appearances, provocative and often vulgar, lyrics, and that is what “sells”, unfortunately. We are here to make another proposal.
And one last question: when you accepted the offer to participate in TEDxAUTH 2019, what was it that prompted you to respond positively?
P.E.:Â First of all, that we want to communicate with the AUTH world because partly, we belong to it. Two of the band members are professors in the Department of Music Studies and the other two are colleagues from the State Orchestra and other major musical groups. Therefore, we want to communicate with the world of Thessaloniki and, above all, with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
And of course, in order to give a sample of the range of our repertoire, and that’s why of the six songs we played, two were more cinematic, another two were tango-type and two were Hadjidakis’s creations. Moreover, TEDxAUTH is an important institution and we are honored to be part of it.
Translation: Kleio Antonaki
Review: Niki Saridaki
