MICHALIS FRAGIADAKIS - TO STAVRODROMI TOU OURANOU

In our days, where art often seeks the "caress" of the ephemeral, Michalis Fragkiadakis is a living reminder of the depth and timelessness that traditional music can carry. A lute player, a musical creator in the full sense of the word, he is not simply a performer of the past, but an artist who, through the lute, recreates the past, brings it to the present and bestows it with his own unique sound, renewing our relationship with tradition each time. His music is simply the means to tell stories. Stories that transcend the linearity of time, that are intertwined with the landscape mainly of Crete, the beautiful village of Gergeri but also with the Kato Asites on the outskirts of Geros Psiloritis and Greece more broadly, but also with the most hidden corners of the human soul. Every string of his lute, every note that springs from his fingers, is a small rustle that brings the sound of the world around us. A feeling familiar, yet otherworldly, a discovery that never loses its authenticity. The lute, in his hands, is not only the instrument that “writes” the past. It is the instrument that expresses his personal history, the people who passed through his life, the moments that marked him. The instrument may be traditional, but Fragkiadakis’ interpretation has something contemporary, something that brings the past into dialogue with the present. He is a living example of how tradition is not simply something that we lock in boxes or that we see as a museum; it is something that endures, that evolves and is constantly reborn through the artist. His ability to feel and understand the deepest psychology of the rizitiko, the traditional song of the place that gave birth to it, but also of the entheno, is unique. And his interpretation, full of emotional intensity and technical perfection, reveals a rare ability to express the unspeakable; those moments that words fail to touch, when only sound can convey the weight, beauty and tragedy of human existence. As a lute player, Michalis Fragkiadakis is not content to follow the rules of the past. On the contrary, the lute in his hands becomes a tool for interpreting time and place, revealing the unseen aspects of the Greek musical tradition. As if he has learned to look at each piece of music through the soul of his people, to "conversate" with memories, to recognize silences, to fill the gaps with the sound that fills and defines him. Michalis Fragkiadakis is the example of that artist who does not fight with tradition, but embraces it in a way, renews it and sculpts it, offering the audience something truly rare: the ability to feel that the music of the past can accompany our present in a way that is so profound and at the same time so familiar. Now we have the pleasure of listening to his renewed discography through his new CD entitled: "At the crossroads of heaven".

Eva Kapellaki Kontou [Educator, columnist & radio producer]