The Peregrinations of a Princess, with Nikos Ordoulidis

Lecture #50 in Joshua Horowitz’s series, The Promiscuous World of Jewish Music

The Peregrinations of a Princess… Urban Popular Music of the 20th Century in the Network of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the South-Eastern Mediterranean, a presentation by Nikos Ordoulidis

Monday, June 7, 11am Pacific Time/2pm New York/ 7pm London/ 8pm Paris/ 9pm Tel Aviv. Please confirm the local time.

Length: 1 – 2 hours

Donations to Josh Horowitz are accepted and appreciated, but not required.

Zoom Meeting ID: 967 8901 9038
Password: 156230

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Around June, 1936, ‘I want a princess’ by Panagiotis Tountas, was recorded, constituting one of the most emblematic and timeless favourites of the rebetiko. Tountas recorded it three years earlier, with a different title, different lyrics and a different introduction. The very same melody was recorded in 1910 by Jews in Lithuania, in 1927 in Serbia, even in Romania, America and elsewhere. This presentation follows the path of this melody in historical discography, focusing on and studying twenty of its recordings. Through examination of the discography, an effort is made to construct a model for the (more than a few) wandering melodies, examining various historical, social and cultural elements of the places that convey them, in order to highlight the appropriation, from the aspect of the musicians, but also the open nature of cultural borders.

Nikos Ordoulidis is an Academic Scholar and Lecturer, Department of Music Studies, University of Ioannina, Greece.

About Joshua Horowitz»

This project has been made possible in part by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, in partnership with the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts, and The California Endowment.