Kostas Novakis

Kostas Novakis ( _el. Κώστας Νοβάκης, _mk. Костас Новакис born 1957) is a musician and amateur ethnographer from Greece. A member of the Slavic-speaking minority in Greek Macedonia, he is known for having collected and published recordings of traditional folk music in the local Macedonian Slavic dialects."Tragoudia - epitelous - me logia!" "Elefterotypia", 27 March 2004 [http://www.enet.gr/online/online_fpage_text/dt=27.03.2004,id=84957764,92840900,79295684] ]

Biography

Kostas Novakis comes from Koufalia, near Giannitsa, Greece, where he works as a dentist. During the mid-1990s, he began recording traditional Slavic-Macedonian songs from elderly people in various places in western and central Macedonia. He began to perform these songs himself, together with his wife Haroula, an ethnic Greek [http://www.culture.in.mk/story.asp?id=3103 Ministry of Culture - Republic of Macedonia, 11 May 2002] ] initially circulating CDs privately among friends. In 2002 and 2003, he published three CDs with a collection of such songs with a band of local instrumentalists and occasionally as well as two musicians from the Greek border towns of Gevgelija and Bogdanci in the neighbouring Republic of Macedonia, with titles in both Greek and Macedonian. The publication was noted in the press as the first of its kind in Greece and as the "end of a taboo", because the songs had not been publicly performed in Greece for decades and had not been previously documented. He claims to have recorded over 1000 Macedonian language songs, which are in the local Slavic Macedonian dialects.

Novakis is also reported to be a member of the "Centre for Macedonian Culture" in Greece and has been a guest of the "Meeting of refugees from Aegean Macedonia" in Trnovo, Republic of Macedonia. [http://www.mhrmi.org/news/2003/may_september_e.pdf Greek Member State Committee of EBLUL] ] [http://www.makedonskosonce.com/broevis/2002/sonce422/Tekst20.htm "Makedonsko sonce" magazine] ] Novakis claims that " The observation of the tradition and the Macedonian folklore have been in his blood since childhood".

Discography

* [http://www.folkmusic.gr/en/belo-more-en.htm "White field down to the White sea" (Avlos Editions)] (Λευκός κάμπος πλάι σε θάλασσα λευκή / Бело поле до Белото море)
* [http://www.folkmusic.gr/en/gora-zelena-en.htm "Rising of the green forest" (Avlos Editions)] (Πράσινο δάσος / Развила гора зелена)
* [http://www.folkmusic.gr/en/ponunda-en.htm "Offer from Thessaloniki" (Avlos Editions)] (Πρόσφορα από τη Θεσσαλονίκη / Понуда од Солун)

Audio samples

* [http://www.folkmusic.gr/wma/blue/05.wma "Mitko vojvoda" ("Mitko The Chieftain")]
* [http://www.folkmusic.gr/wma/blue/02.wma "Sulejmanovo" ("Sulejman's")]
* [http://www.folkmusic.gr/wma/green/01.wma "Razvila gora zelena" ("Rising of the green forest")]

Footnotes

ee also

*Music of Macedonia
*Music of the Republic of Macedonia
*Music of Greek Macedonia