KRISTI Stassinopoulou, Greece

Singer, lyricist and fiction writer Kristi Stassinopoulou, a native Athenian active on Greece’s underground music scene for many years, has generated a wide appeal in the international world music circuit. The successful blend of traditional greek rhythms and sound colours, haunting Byzantine vocal lines, rembetika music, psychedelic rock, ambience and electronica, combined with Kristi’s vivid scenic appearance and personality and her colourful band, sparked great response and led to frequent appearances in world music festivals, mostly in Europe and N. America.
Kristi’s poetic lyrics evoke primordial mythology, alluding to imaginary landscapes, sun worship, bright passions and things eternal.
Her albums have been gathering enthusiastic reviews all around the globe (fRoots, New York Herald Tribune, Global Village, Jazz Times, El Pais, Billboard, Time Out and many more), while she has been compared at times to Hedningarna, Steely Span, Patti Smith, Grace Slick, or Bjork.
Accompanied by her long time collaborator composer, arranger, co-producer and multi-instrumentalist -with an all-round grasp of diverse styles- Stathis Kalyviotis, they have made 3 albums of international appeal, Ifantokosmos, Echotropia (WMCE Top 10, released in N. America nad Brasil) and The Secrets of the Rocks.
Her latest album "The Secrets of the Rocks", 2002, where Kristi manifests her environmental concerns for the developing world, topped the World Music Charts Europe in January 2003 at No 1, Kristi made the cover story of fRoots, UK, in March 2003, and the album has been released until now in the UK, N. America & Spain and soon in Croatia, too.
Kristi and Stathis continue their musical voyage, writing new songs, experimenting on environmental sounds and giving live performances in Greece and abroad, combining electro sounds and traditional instruments such as saz, lute, oud, baglamas, lyra or flutes.

LES PECHEURS DE PERLES, Persian Gulf - France

Persian Gulf is located right between a huge area covering India throughout the Mediterranean. Inescapable place for many travellers and traders, it's culture has been influenced by arabic's, indian's and mediterranean cultures.
Mohamed Alnuma was born and raised in the Persian gulf before he came to France and created his band: Les Pecheurs de perles (Pearl divers). That name, as a symbol, reminds on the ancient time when the Persian Gulf was the most popular place for pearl diving – in the isle of Barhein, Iran, South of Iraq, Kuwait and up to Yemen. Musicians used to go on a boat with pearl divers and give a rhythm for their work! Pearl diving has stopped now, but music has survived.
Mohamed Alnuma's inspiration comes from those times, but is also influenced by other cultures he got in touch with. Each musician's personality makes Mohamed's original cmpositions richer and creates a bridge between East and West.

Folkestra, Croatia

Folkestra is trio of one of the best Croatian drummer, Krunoslav Levačić which besides Folkestra cooperates with numerous musicians like Matija Dedić, Lidija Bajuk and Tamara obrovac. Together with Teo Martinović and Žiga Golob, beside own compositions he creates unusual reinterpretations of popular music creations, from classic and jazz to folk and contemporary songs. It is better to describe what they do by their own words: "Education and history (either musical or personal) of individuals or the band is not important. The group plays the music of the moment and it means it's different every time. For those that find this insufficient we can say that all the members are highly respected by critics, politicians and saints, and all the rest the sound will say." At last, we can quote a recent review: "Happy and 'handy' musicians who play what they like the way they like at the moment".

Mojmir Novaković i KRIES, Croatia

There are moments in each human's life when some idea hits you so powerfully that it becomes the focus of your being. There are only two choices: to give it up or to pursue it. It was 1992 when Mojmir Novaković decided to pursue his dream: to look for the wisdom of life in the ancient lyrics and chants of his people and to revive them in his time and manner. Being born and raised in the city he had his own point of view how to revive and transfere parts of the past to the present.

Together with some of his college friends he started a band "Legen". Their first concert "Tribute to the Spring" happened on March 21st 1993. In 1995 the same group formed "Ethnoambient" a festival dedicated to tradition based music from Croatia and all around the World which is still successfully introducing different cultures to each other celebrating beauty of cultural diversity.
Mojmir and Legen presented their music which many called "etno-rock" through numerous concerts throughout the World, theatre and movie realisations, albums and domestic and international CD compilations.
In 2002 members of Legen decided to take a break from each other and Mojmir formed a new group which got a name "Kries" which means "Bonfire" in obsolete form of Croatian language.

In the first year of this band's existence, they made music for "Konjanik" ("Horserider"), movie by famous Croatian director Branko Ivanda and they continued to explore Croatian traditional culture
finding ancient lyrics and chants and bringing them over to the present time equally using both traditional instruments and modern electronic technology.

The reason for being inspired by the traditional culture may be in discovering the symbolism of the ancient scripts and sounds in order to enrich the present moments. However, sometimes the reason is just a simple, pure beauty of the songs which are reflecting eternal values of human beings, cosmos and both visible and invisible Nature.