The Light of East Ensemble

Panayiotis Giannarapis was a mere boy when the music grabbed hold of his soul. A child of London-based Greek immigrants, he heard the music of his elders and heard in it a sound he not only loved but needed to make himself.

On the evening of November 13 at Aeolian Hall, Giannarapis and his Light of East Ensemble will honour that childhood muse and celebrate the music of not only Greece, but Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Armenia to name a few.

“We’ve been doing it for three years and its been going very well,” says Giannarapis in typically understated fashion.

The Light of East Ensemble has been a success far beyond Giannarapis’ modest ambitions, with appearances at festivals in Kitchener and London’s Sunfest and Home County, spreading the word far beyond the ethnic fanbase that is their defacto audience.

“We have had a bit of a crowd coming to follow us ever since Sunfest and we have different nationalities and all sorts of people coming out to enjoy our music”, Giannarapis says. “The people say ‘hey man, this is great music, this is something different, I love your sound, the instrumentation’”.

The music of the Light of East Ensemble as heard on their soon-to-be-released debut recording Beyond Our Shores pulls together Arabic, Turkish, something Giannarapis calls ‘Greek blues’ and other ethnic folk music into a hypnotic, spirited and extremely compelling mix.

Giannarapis credits his father’s ever-present reel-to-reel recorder with spurring his passion for all things music. The recorder was full of Greek music of all kinds and it would be ubiquitous at any family or Greek community gathering he went to.

“I didn’t know anything else other than Greek culture,” he says. “Everything was Greek at home. I was so involved in that. My parents went to Greek parties, with family and friends. My father would bring the reel-to-reel with all that music. He was going on all the time, in the car, at home about the music. It was just always there.”

What wasn’t here however was someone to teach Giannarapis the bouzouki. So after learning classical guitar (“flamenco style” he says) he went to Toronto to take bouzouki lessons. After the lessons Giannarapis hooked up with a like-minded Toronto band and hunkered down to learn from them.

“They were these monster musicians and players and I learned a lot from those guys,” he says. “I just said to myself, I’d like to bring something like this to London.

“I was in the London musicians’ association so I just called around and found musicians who wanted to do world music justice and from there it just started taking off.”

Those London musicians were and still are the current line-up of the Light of East Ensemble: Bryan Covey on clarinet, and various wind instruments, the flute of Jennifer Baetz Chester, Steve Clark on double bass, Mary Asthon on violin, Daniel Baerg on percussion and of course Giannarapis on bouzouki and baglama.

While Giannarapis came at the music from the perspective of personal heritage, he was delighted to find that his band-mates made up for in musicianship what they lacked in musical heritage.

“I was like ‘these people don’t know Greek but they play Greek music,’” laughs Giannarapis. “How did this happen? Well, they’re musicians, they’re musicians.”

Giannarapis told his band members that there’s a story behind each piece of music, a reality made apparent by audience reactions at some of their performances.

“I remember when we were playing this one piece, I saw this man while I was playing, and wondered if he’s Greek,” he recalls. “At the end of the concert his son said my father wants to talk to you. The guy hugs me, he had tears in his eyes and he said I haven’t heard that song since I left Greece. Where did you find it?”

Although Giannarapis recognizes that the music is nostalgic for those who grew up with it, “the mission is to bring back this music to those people but also those who have not heard this type of music.”

“Some people who are not from Middle Eastern countries, come up to me and say ‘hey man, this is great music, this is something different, I love your sound the instrumentation’.”

Despite his commitment to the Light of East Ensemble, Giannarapis hasn’t given up his day job at Ford, although, he insists “this is another full-time job.”

“I put my heart and soul into everything with practice, rehearsals, and get-togethers with the band to get the job done,” he says.