Composing Greek music at an international level
Pericles Kanaris is a composer, producer, performer and founder of music band SYNOLON.
He was born in Athens, Greece. He studied music and philosophy in Europe and the United States winning multiple distinctions and awards. He has composed music for various international media. Among other distinguished credits, his composition “Project Innocence”, originally written for film, was given its world-premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall in May 2007.
It was in Athens where he started studying classical music. He later on won the B.E.S.T. Fellowship from the Berklee College of Contemporary music, in Boston. He also studied piano and singing, he specialized in music made for the cinema, and graduated magna cum laude, winning two prizes in musical composition. In 2002 he moved to New York where he worked as a composer for Hurd Stuios, pioneers in 3D animations. In 2007 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York chose him to release the first compilation of Greek music, in conjunction with the reopening of its world-renowned Greek and Roman galleries. In 2008 he created “Synolon”, a contemporary Greek music ensemble, which collaborated with many great artists, such as Ara Dinkjian (Night Ark) and Janis Siegel (Manhattan Transfer).
Greek music, however, has equally been a great source of passion and inspiration since the beginning of his career. He is the composer and lyricist of the song “Stin Ygia Mas” that became the title theme for the acclaimed Greek music television program with Spiros Papadopoulos, a famous Greek actor.
In October 2014 he released his debut album “AORATOS”, which means invisible, seven original songs that he has in Greek, composed on the verses of acclaimed Greek poet Manos Eleftheriou, sang by a distinct list of prominent Greek vocalists such as Vasilis Papakonstantinou, Kostas Makedonas, Rita Antonopoulou and Lamprini Karakosta. The album was premiered at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York, garnering great reviews from the Greek and International press. The International New York Times recognized his music “a Greek Identity with Global Sounds”. He is the featured “Newsmaker of the Month” for June 2015 in the official newsletter of the Greek Embassy’s Press and Communication Office in Washington DC.
Pericles Kanaris lives between Athens and New York.
“AORATOS” is the debut album of Pericles Kanaris. Few years back, Kanaris had met Greek legendary poet/lyricist Manos Eleftheriou by a twist of fate. This led to a collaboration when Eleftheriou entrusted him with 7 unpublished poems. Kanaris composed the music and went ahead to produce the songs independently, bringing together some of his favorite artists from his 2 musical homes: Athens and New York. “Aoratos” was born as a result, featuring the work of an array of internationally recognized artists from around the globe, some of them Grammy Award winners.
“When an artist the with the size of Manos Eleftheriou entrusts a new artist with his poems/lyrics, even though there are one or two generations between us, then this means that there also things that we have in common, and I really hope these things will be shown through our album, and that the people will enjoy them very much”, says Kanaris at a past interview.
