A traditional music performance dedicated to the three gifts of the earth –wheat, wine and olive oil– will take place at the 6th Vamvakou Experience Festival, curated by professor of ethnomusicology and creator of the television programme “Salt of the Earth – To Alati tis Gis”, Lambros Liavas.
At a time when the climate crisis has become a constant threat, these “sacred songs”, rooted in folk traditions and rituals, invite us to reconnect with nature and the fertility of both the earth and humankind. Folk songs function as a form of contemporary “musical ecology”, celebrating and symbolically invoking the elements of nature and the fruits of the land, wisely woven into the two major cycles of Greek folk culture: the cycle of life and the annual cycle of the seasons.
“Reaping, grape harvest, war”, as older farmers used to say, captured the relentless struggle of rural life, often akin to the conditions of battle. And since “love requires kisses and war requires songs”, song itself functioned as one of the essential tools and “weapons” of labour.
Celebrating the Greek summer months of the Harvester and the Thresher, Lambros Liavas presents a musical performance featuring selected songs, texts and visual material from various regions of the Greek world, all exploring the timeless relationship between the Greek people and the three fundamental gifts of the earth: wheat-bread, grape-wine and olive-oil.
