Guitar Kanun Duet

A classical guitar and a kanun: an unusual duet. Versatile Greek musicians Sofia Labropoulou and Vassilis Ketentzoglou have created a repertory for this unprecedented combination, resulting in a new and fresh musical soundworld; a meeting of minds and cultures. On one hand, there is the guitar: a fretted, well-tempered, polyphonic ‘Western’ string instrument; on the other, the kanun: a zither-like ‘Eastern’ string instrument, also often referred as "the piano of Asia Minor" capable of playing microtonal scales, and typically played as a monophonic solo instrument. The two musicians have found innovative ways to blend these contrasting musical worlds: the guitar sometimes becomes an ‘Eastern’ solo instrument, playing microtonal melodies and ornamenting as Middle Eastern instruments do, and the kanun becomes like a ‘Western’ instrument, playing chords or even counterpoint.