Eirini Derebei
Singer
She was born and raised in Athens, where she studied music theory and singing under Marina Krilovic. She is a graduate of the Athens Conservatoire (monody diploma with honors, under Meni Charalambidou) and the Pallini Music High School; she plays the tanpura, the kaval and the Constantinople lute (or lafta), and has engaged in traditional, Byzantine and western music. A multitude of musical genres help her shape her own musical personality and develop a personal sound and special technique, incorporating a variety of musical idioms. She started singing in recordings at a very young age, working with the Greek Music Archive and Chronis Aidonidis. In 1993, she founded the Palaiina Seferia ensemble together with Karolos Kouklakis and Zacharias Spyridakis. They recorded two albums and gave concerts in Greece and abroad. She has participated in numerous album productions and has worked with renowned musicians and composers in Greece and abroad, such as Chronis Aidonidis, Ross Daily, Nikos Mamangakis, Vangelis Papathanasiou, Christos Leontis, Yannis Markopoulos, George Tsontakis, Jordi Savall, etc.). She has been working with Karolos Kouklakis, since 2008, on a new approach to Cretan music, giving concerts in Greece and abroad (Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria, Ferara, Brussels, Corsica, etc.. She teaches tambura at the Pallini Music High School, as well as singing at MELMOKE (Museum of Greek Popular Musical Instruments Phoebe Anoyanakis, Ethnomusicology Center). In 1993, she won the best performance award at the 2nd Cretan Music Festival “Kostas Mountakis”. Some of her concert performances are available on the Internet. At GNO, she performed in the world premiere of Giorgos Koumendakis’ opera The Murderess, as part of a 4-member traditional polyphonic ensemble (Athens Concert Hall, 2014-15). // Last update of the biography: December 2015 - The list of the productions below is complete.