A Visit to the island of Syros and the Rebetiko Music Festival

Sunrise on the ferry bound for Syros, capital of the Cycladic islands. Coffee and a tiropita help start the day.

The light north wind and perfect conditions makes me think of Kazantzakis’ words: “Happy is the man who… has the good fortune to sail the Aegean Sea.”

What early morning enthusiasm! A folk dance troupe from the northern Greece town of Xanthi got us into the mood, performing dances on the boat deck.

Syros, 3 1/2 – 4 hours from Piraeus on the conventional (not high speed) ferry, first appears as a typical island of the Cyclades, dry, barren and rocky. Then Ermoupoli, the capital, slowly comes into view.

The town is characterized by two hills, one with an Orthodox church on top, and one with a Catholic, reflecting the history of the island.

Ermoupoli, meaning city of Hermes, the messenger of the gods (and also interestingly, the protector of merchants and thieves) has the usual frenetic movement at any port. The town is full of sokakia — little alleys — that have small white houses with flat roofs. In contrast to other Cycladic islands, Syros doesn’t rely nearly totally on tourism. It has a large local population involved in all kinds of commerce and in the shipyard industry, still active.

Uphill from the port in the sokakia is the Kostantza Studios, where we’re staying, on Sofia Vembo Street (a well known singer from the 1930’s to 60’s).

 

Finding the central square, the Plateia Miaouli on foot isn’t easy. GPS is useless with the sokakia that have no name! But eventually the steps and turns lead us there.

Because of all the steps, motorbikes are everywhere to facilitate moving around. It seems wherever you walk, there’s suddenly one roaring behind you.

I notice people are very good about putting out food and water for the cats lounging on the steps and alleyways.

Plateia Miaouli is dominated by the magnificent building of the city hall, built in the 1860’s by the German architect Ernst Ziller, who designed many public buildings and churches in Greece.

As it’s midday, this large square is very quiet with people sitting at cafeterias in the shade.

Right off the square is the Prozimi bakery, a landmark of sorts, open all night (!) known for its wonderful collection of pitas, sandwiches and sweets. The Mediterranean pita with feta, tomato, pepper and olives was a highlight and also the kotopita, with chunks of chicken and sweet red pepper.

Around the corner from the square lies the Apollo Theater, also dating from the 1860’s, designed by an Italian architect to resemble La Scala inside. The theater has a rich series of theatrical events all year.

Near the plateia is the busy market area around the harbor with its produce, fresh fish, cafes on heavily shaded tiny streets and little restaurants.

The most beautiful area of Ermoupoli is surely the Vaporia neighborhood, home to wealthy 19th century shipowners, captains and bankers. Beyond St. Nicholas, you can admire their 19th century neoclassical villas. Some of the mansions have entrances that go right down to the sea.

Some mansions are in use, some used as hotels but a number of them lie abandoned and in a semi ruinous state. It would take a lot of money obviously to fix them up. This villa that Elias admired was for sale.

You can have a relaxing drink at the Vaporia cafe with its unbeatable view.

Under the church as you walk down the paved path to the beach, look across the endless sweep of the Aegean.

It’s an “urban” beach where you can set your towel or mat on the concrete jetty, or a few benches or even on the steps. But be careful. You can’t leave anything lying on the ground itself or it could be swept up in a wave. A sign warns you (English translation) “To the Bathers: Attention: Danger because of big undulations due to going through boats.” And it really is no joke, you’d better be sure you’re not swimming near the jetty or the “undulations” can easily throw you against the rocks.

For more traditional beaches, roads take you to the south or west side of the island. It’s easy to get a bus from the port. We spent a day at sandy Megas Yialos beach on the southern side (the north winds that often blow in the Cyclades made that a safe choice, instead of going to Galissa to the west.

People like to say Syros is not known for beautiful beaches compared to other Cycladic islands, but I don’t think that’s true. In any case, we’re not beach starved (!) and enjoy being in a cultural town like Ermoupoli and Ano Syros.

You really notice the dryness of the land on the ride to the beach, that takes you past greenhouses, solar panels, olive tree groves, bamboo groves and lots of fragosyka (cactus with prickly pear). As in every island, there are unfinished houses up in the hills.

At Megas Yialos, a lot of grandparents were taking care of their grandkids, like we saw on the island of Kea. The beach was crowded until lunchtime.

Rebetiko Festival

Tarsanas (Neoria) Shipyards

One of the reasons we’ve come back to Syros these days is for the 8th Rebetiko (Rembetiko) Festival, this year its theme, Women in Rebetiko.

Rebetiko music is better listened to than described in words. Called “urban blues,” it was an underground music that grew up in the early 20th century, its songs expressing love, sorrow, pain, poverty, hashish… Playing rebetiko is more than the music itself, it’s a way of living.

The “father of rebetiko,” Markos Vamvakaris, was from Syros, so it’s appropriate that a festival be held here. One of the first things you see in the port when you get off the boat is a statue of Markos (as he’s called fondly) with his ever present bouzouki (a plaque warns you not to touch the statue as you’re being seen with a camera). More on Markos to follow.

Along with the festival is an exhibit off of Plateia Miaouli on musical instruments. These are the 3 most often used in “classical” rebetiko — guitar and above all bouzouki and the small baglama, with its tinny sound.

Tarsanas shipyards

Two nights of the festival are being held at the Tarsanas shipyards at night. Nearly across from the shipyards, we stop at a cafeneion/fish taverna with its unusual name “Lise – Dose”(Tie, Untie) It’s a local place where we can hear the staff calling to each other “The doctor is coming at 9, he needs a table” or “Mitsos and the family are on their way, let’s find a table for them.” We have a salad with arugula, sun dried tomatoes, parmesan and (too many) croutons, kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters) and two kinds of fish, maridakia (smelts) and delicious fresh sardines (usually served whole, but here they were filleted). A very lucky cat sat next to our table munching on the tiny fish heads.

The shipyard venue for the concert is just perfect. A little history: after the creation of the Greek state in the 1830’s, the city of Ermoupouli expanded with refugees from other islands and the shipbuilding industry took off, with building large wooden ships. The heavy shipbuilding activity lasted until the 1980’s but now the shipyards, though still active, are into mostly ship repair. However, according to a plaque, “traditional wooden sloops will continue to travel the seas, carrying their own mythical stories, as a living legend of the Greek art of wooden shipbuilding.”

After a short school film dedicated to Rita Ambatzi, one of the early women rebetiko singers, the group took the stage. They focused on Ambatzi, Rosa Eshkenazi (both from Thessaloniki). and a 3rd singer, Marika i Politissa (from Constantinople). The group’s instruments were more traditional Smyrna and Constantinople rebetiko than Greek: note the violin, santouri (like a dulcimer) and a uti, similar to bouzouki.

With the population exchange in 1922, the Asia Minor refugees brought over their music and it blended with the “classical” Greek rebetiko of bouzouki and baglama.

The audience was eager to get up to dance.

The next night indeed the bouzouki starred.

There was a surprise visit from Giorgos Dalaras, a very well known, very expressive lyric and also rebetiko singer — disappointingly he didn’t perform but said a few words of support for the festival.

After the concert the 2nd night, as we turned away from the port, we could hear a haunting woman’s voice, not sorrowful but joyful. Where was that beautiful voice coming from? We had to know! So we started wandering the sokakia, the alleys, like Odysseus’ sailors drawn hypnotically to the songs of the Sirens. We thought we had found the source, then the voice faded away only to turn up a little bit further. The streets were mostly deserted, but two young women stopped us to ask where the voice was coming from, so we knew we weren’t dreaming!

Ano Syros

The last night of the festival was held in Ano (upper) Syros, appropriate since this is where Markos was born in poverty and spent his childhood.

To get to Ano Syros, you can drive or get a taxi up the hill or most interesting, if you’re reasonably fit and up to it, is to find the white stone staircase that leads you up there. (Guess which we did…) It’s a few hundred steps and takes about 15 minutes. It’s pretty steep in parts and along the way, you stop and see how Ermoupoli unfolds as you climb and gaze at the gorgeous bougainvillea. (In the summer, only do this walk after sundown) We didn’t see anyone on the steps except one woman, who looked like she lived around there, walking down.

On the way up, this wall painting of Greek poet and song lyricist Manos Eleftheriou, native son of Ermoupoli, caught our eye.

The staircase might end, but still a lot of steps lie before you in this medieval fortified city that used to have gates around it that closed at night. Ano Syros was established by the Venetians in the 13th century, a rule that was called the frangokratia by the Greeks, “frango/franko” referring to any West European Catholic country. The area was settled away from the port as protection against pirate raids, a continual problem of the time. The locals kept the Greek language but regarding religion, many converted to Catholicism, which continued after the Ottomans conquered in 1522. This sizeable Catholic population remaining today makes Syros’ history different from other Cycladic islands.

The highest point of Ano Syros is the Catholic Cathedral of Saint George. Here’s the view of the town below. Note the ever visible blue domed St. Nicholas church in Vaporia to the left.

Walking around Ano Syros

In the labyrinthine streets lie two Markos Vamvakaris museums. In the main one, that details the growth of rebetiko and where you can listen to his songs from a jukebox, you also get a detailed history of Greece’s trials and tribulations in mostly the 19th and 20th century.

Regarding Markos’ connection to rebetiko and music, he was born in 1905 in Ano Syros and had to leave school after just 4 years to do various jobs to help support the family. During WWI with a blockade of the island leading to dire conditions of hunger, he and his whole family, parents and two younger brothers got into smuggling. They were all arrested and imprisoned for 15 days.

A prank that led to something more serious and the police looking for him, led to his stowing away on a ship for Piraeus at the age of 15. (There, he wrote, it was the first time that he wore shoes.) What about music? His father played a kind of bagpipe in cafeneions and Markos often accompanied him on a drum. Later in the army he learned the baglama, but it was so associated with crime and drugs, that he said he had to hide it under his coat. (Many musicians did this.) In the 1920’s while working in a slaughterhouse, he heard his uncle playing the bouzouki and he was so entranced that he promised to himself, “if I don’t learn to play it, I’ll cut off my hand.”

Fortunately he didn’t have to do that. In a career of performing and composing, Markos’ most famous and beloved song is probably “Fragosyriani” meaning a Catholic girl from Syros. Visiting the island again in the 1930’s, he was playing bouzouki on a beach and captivated by the image of a young woman he saw, he wrote the song. Here it is in his raspy voice.

The first stanza he writes: What a burst of flame I have in my heart/As if you had cast a spell on me, Sweet Frangosyriani/As if you had cast a spell on me, Sweet Frangosyriani.

You can find more information about the song, with the Greek lyrics and English translation here.

A poignant mural at the Plateia Markos Vamvakaris and Frangosyriani cafe, shows Markos and his son Stelios, also a bouzouki player, who died a few years ago, up in the heavens above Ano Syros with a carafe of tsiporo and a couple of glasses. Stelios is saying: “It’s been a long time since we played Frangosyriani father” and Markos answers “start playing Stelios.”

Here’s another one of his songs, this one on a social theme, “Markos the Minister” or “Whoever Become Prime Ministers.” Note the catchy bouzouki introduction, simple lyrics and repetition (he repeats the 1st and 4th line of each stanza and the 2nd and 3rd), which makes it sound indeed like a blues song. He’s having fun in this song, speaking ironically about politicians: “the people chase the Prime Minister for their good deeds.” In one verse he says, “I hand in a nomination to be prime minister, to be sitting around eating and drinking…”

The music of rebetiko grew up with ties to a marginal and sometimes criminal world, drugs and prison. In the 30’s the music was banned by the Metaxas government, it went underground, but by the 50’s, the middle class was finding it “fashionable” and it was going more mainstream. The bouzouki was accepted as an instrument that influenced many kinds of Greek music, from the laiko (popular) music of composer and bouzouki player Vassilis Tsitsanis to Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Hatzidakis and others. In 1984, the acclaimed film “Rebetiko” was released. The story traces the tumultuous life and career of a singer born in Smyrna in 1917, and joined the refugees in coming to Greece in 1922. Original music by Stavros Xarhakos and lyrics, Nikos Gatsos.

It’s hard to find material on rebetika in English, but a good source is the book Road to Rembetika by Gail Holst, a musician herself. Available on Amazon and many bookstores in Greece. The subtitle is Music of a Greek Sub-culture, songs of love, sorrow and hashish. Another excellent source is Matt Barrett’s Greece Travel site, where he gives a very readable and thorough introduction to popular Greek music. He talks about rebetika’s origins and history, its famous and not so famous singers and musicians and gives links to well known songs, even suggesting places in Athens where you can hear authentic rebetika music.

I always wanted to play the bouzouki and Elias the baglama.

In the memorabilia museum, you can watch clips of international concerts of rebetiko. The museum had books, instruments, records, even Markos’ clothes.

This final song, not by Markos, has been recorded by countless artists. You can’t really hear this tender melody without singing along. To Minore tis Avgis, or “The Minor of the Sunrise” or “A Minor Key of Dawn.”

Basically, the melancholy lyrics say “Wake up my little one and listen to a minor of the dawn, written for you by the crying of a soul, open your window, throw me a sweet look, then I can ‘fade away’ my little one, in front of your house, in a corner…”

The lyricist of this song, Minos Matsas, who wrote hundreds of songs and was director of a record company, was probably most instrumental in getting Markos known. In 1933, Matsas writes, a man in a cap and long coat entered his office and said “Boss I have some songs to play for you.” The man takes out of his coat the baglama, leaving the bouzouki next to him, an instrument then almost unknown, and starts playing. Matsas liked the “truth, the directness” of the music, and signed Markos up to a recording session.

“To Minore tis Avgis” was also the name of a theatrical play we saw a few years ago at the Demotic Theater in Piraeaus about a group of rebeticists, loosely based on Markos Vamvakaris’ life and other rebeticists of the time. It was also a TV series.

You might wonder, where are the women in rebetiko — it may have been the title of the festival, but not much was done with the theme. You might check out the recording of the song by Sotiria Bellou, a rebetiko singer who had more than her share of pain and sorrow in her life.

Agios Thanassis

It’s getting dark and time to make our way to the final concert, which is being held in the woods beyond Ano Syros. We follow a path out of the town to a windmill on a hill. After the windmill, the “road” turns to just large stones. You can imagine a donkey traveling over them.

Agios Thanassis is a beautiful place where if you listen carefully you can hear running water and there’s a spring where you can fill up your water. But beyond the beauty and remoteness, it seems that Markos wrote a song praising the spring and the coolness of the site.

The musicians are doing their last rehearsals before we’re ready to start and the audience is settling in. All ages are in the audience. When they tune up and area ready to begin, a hush falls over the crowd.

The performance drew on mostly classical rebetika. The audience was enthusiastic, singing along. But at one point the lights went out and the sound system blew. The bouzouki player said they could continue if there was complete silence. And there was, as if everyone was holding their breath. Under the star filled night sky, you could hear the soft strains of the instruments and the singer. After a few minutes, the lights and sound came on but how beautiful and unearthly it was in the darkness.

Midnight came and went with no signs of stopping. Thinking of our trek home, we left (early!) at 12:15.

We happened to run into the contrabasso player (on the left) on the Athens metro the next day and congratulated him. When we asked him what time they stopped, he said for sure beyond 1:30.

Back toward Ano Syros, looking down carefully not to trip over the stones, beyond the windmill and now to find the top of the staircase to walk down…

The festival was a great opportunity to discover more about this fascinating music that I’ve been hearing during my years living in Greece and to learn about the legendary Markos. Just one complaint: there could have been some effort to promote the festival to non Greek tourists — I didn’t see that at all.

With our ears filled with the sweet sound of the bouzouki, we boarded the boat the next day and saw the town receding in the distance.

A beautiful island with a genuine feel, in touch with its roots, love you Syros!

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Sherri Moshman Paganos is a writer and former educator, inspired by her life in Athens, where she and her husband are happily retired and enjoying their travels in Greece and abroad. You can check out her writing — fiction, non-fiction, poetry and articles here.