Aegean Islands Folk Music

Aegean Islands folk music, known in Greek as nisiotika, is the traditional song and dance music of the Aegean archipelago, spanning the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, the Sporades and the eastern Aegean islands. Its sound rests on the dialogue of violin or pear-shaped lyra with plucked laouto, coloured by tsampouna bagpipe, souravli flute and santouri, and its melodies borrow microtonal inflections from the makam modes. The repertoire serves the island feast cycle: wedding and carnival dances such as the syrtos, sousta, ballos and ikariotikos, narrative ballads, and ritual calendar songs, preserved by hereditary musician families and village festivities rather than by institutions.