ECHODRASI Percussion Group
The percussion group of the Olympic Games Athens 2004
Echodrasi (Ηχόδραση) = Echos + Drasi = Sound + Action
Nikos Touliatos' percussion group, Echodrasi, is unique for this style in Greece.
The group was created twenty years ago with many participations and collaborations in musical festivals in Greece, as well as abroad. The highlight of this journey so far, has been the group's participation in the opening and closing ceremonies of the OLYMPIC GAMES ATHENS 2004, by creating and leading a larger group of 400 volunteer drummers, during the opening ceremony, and a group that performed a composition of Nikos Touliatos with various objects of the athletes, during the closing ceremony.
THE GROUP'S BIOGRAPHY
DIRECTORS OF SOUNDS PERCUSSIONS'... ACTS
There is no need for many references to Nikos Touliatos. The musical audience considers him (and he is) the greatest Greek percussionist.
Nikos Touliatos was the creator and leader of the group of 400 drummers for the opening ceremony and also the composer of the music that was played by another percussion group of his creation, during the entrance of the athletes and their countries' flags at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games Athens 2004. Moreover, he has been the creator of the biggest percussion orchestra in history, counting 30.000 members. In Greece, for the last twenty years, Nikos Touliatos, along with the ECHODRASI group, are the most representative artists of the musical genre that experiments with percussion groups and the use of objects of any kind as percussion instruments. But they are not limited to that, only.
ECHODRASI is an open group, that journeys in the space of contemporary music, marrying sound elements from all the world's music. As an idea, the group was born twenty years ago, with the founding of the first percussion and jazz music school in Greece by Nikos Touliatos, named ATHENS PERCUSSION LABORATORY, which was later renamed ECHODRASI.
The group's musical repertoire consists of original tracks composed by Nikos Touliatos and members of the group, as well as of compositions of Thanos Mikroutsikos and other composers. The group performs musical plays and, depending on the theme, it collaborates with singers, dancers, visual artists and players of other musical instruments, using these elements as colour strokes on the dominant musical attitude of the percussions.
In 1987, the first team of percussionists was formed by professors and students of the school and worked with THANOS MIKROUTSIKOS, taking part in several concerts, theatrical plays and festivals around Greece and abroad.
Nikos Touliatos, with the ECHODRASI group, as its founder and director, continues his 25-year long research in the distinct sounds that are produced by the everyday objects, regardless of their material and use.
Today, relating to the tradition of groups like STOMP, KODO, YAMATO and others, ECHODRASI uses, apart from drums, a multitude of objects that produce sound, like barrels, stove-pipes, pots, roasting pans, anvils, drills, hammers, pipes, lids, bags, saws, frying pans and others, with which the group stages shows based on sound, light, costumes and movement.
The group currently consists of 10 performing artists, 2 sound engineers, 1 lighting engineer and 3 technicians, all permanent members.
The group has worked closely with the composers Thanos Mikroutsikos and Stamatis Kraounakis, the singers Savina Yannatou, Alkistis Protopsalti, Kostas Thomaidis, Kalliopi Veta, Hara Argyropoulou, Lia Vissi, Marisa Koch, Trifono and Ilektra Vargka, the percussionists and drummers Gunter Baby Sommer, Hermann Naehring, Fredy Studer, Don Parker, Yannis Stavropoulos, Nikos Kapilidis and Michelle Vurchio, the actors and directors Kostas Kazakos, Grigoris Valtinos, Vasilis Laggos and Athina Pappa, the trumpeters Mra Oma and Pantelis Pashalidis, the bassists Yiotis Kiourtsoglou and Giorgos Fakanas, the sax player David Lynch, the pianist Antreas Symvoulopoulos, the choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou, the director Viktor Arditis, and others.
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