arkadian sounds
arkadian sounds
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Yorgos Panagiotopoulos (aka arkadian sounds) was born in Athens in 1980 and grew up in Tripolis of Arcadia, Greece. At the age of 12, he presented his first compositions for piano at a concert of the local Community for Arts Club (F.O.T.), at the urging of composer Giorgos Katralis. He soon began writing for larger orchestras while constantly learning new instruments. At the age of 14 he came into contact with programming and in 2019 he was one of the first in Greece outside of the big studios to start using digital audio processing systems (DAW) for music production. For the next 13 years he experimented with both analog and digital electronic media, soundscapes, music for picture as well as traditional forms, with dozens of appearances both in the province and in the underground scene of Athens, in which from 1999 to 2001 he made a series of presentations with field recordings from the city streets, noise and long-hour musical forms, while with more conventional forms he has appeared from time to time with some of the most historic names of the Greek and world music scene such as Socrates (2006), Iron Butterfly (2008), ERT Symphony Orchestra (2008), Big Brother & The Holding Company (2009), Wishbone Ash (2010). At the same time, in 2004 he was invited to create the percussion, modern piano and electric bass departments at the Tripoli branch of the Attic Conservatory, while a few years later he created the first workshop for orchestras and the first department of music technology in the city - and one of the first in Greece in a conservatory. He plays more than 10 modern and traditional musical instruments such as drums, bass, acoustic and electric guitars, lute, baglama, bouzouki, mandolin and percussion instruments such as bendir, daire etc, while also being competent at accordion, recorder, davul and more. Since 2005 he is also one of the founders of the international music festival TRIPolis Rock Fest - one of the longest running in Greece - of which he is currently the artistic director.
In 2012 he moved to Athens where in the same year he wrote several pieces for chamber orchestra, synthtesizers and percussion for the theater performance True Stories which opened the 4th International Street Theater Festival, while the following year he wrote a collection of 11 works titled "The Swamp" for orchestra of traditional instruments, tape and polyphonic choir for the play The Frogs of Aristophanes (Helix Action Theatre), which never managed to get presented due to the financial crisis of the summer of '13.
From 2014 he started working with production companies in London (Neon Tetra Films, Dark Valley) writing mainly music for picture. In 2015 he wrote the piece We carry your world for symphony orchestra, synthesizers, traditional percussion and samplers, commissioned for the International Transport Labor Federation (ITF Global) global campaign while in 2016 his symphonic electronic work The Human Temple which was originally written for the experimental theater performance Blessed Breasts (F. Tsardounis, Epi Kolonos, OFF/OFF Athens Festival), it was then released abroad (France, Australia, Japan) while being included in compilations and made available on all international streaming platforms by Audiosparx. The same happened two years later with the mixed symphonic piece Across the Fields, over the Mountains, Under the Open Skies which was commissioned for the UK Labor Party's annual conference opening video in 2018, while in the same year he was one of the composers comissioned to write music for the British National Health System's 70 year anniversary campaign (NHS).
In October 2018 he wrote as an unofficial soundtrack for the Spanish short film El Empleo the suite Les Jardins du Matin for chamber orchestra, a work which was chosen as one of the best among 150 composers from all over the world and presented at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron Music Hall of Athens).
Several of his works has been released in Australia by Xenon Entertainment, in France by Deezer, in Japan by AWA and in Russia by MTS Music and SkySound, while as of 2018 he is represented in 96 countries by Audiosparx. His works are also available on all international streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple music, Amazon music, Tidal, etc. while some of them have also been included in film music collections together with artists such as Hannah Woolmer, Voice of Men, etc.
At the same time, since 2009 he has been teaching contemporary composition and orchestration at the Tripoli branch of the Attica Conservatory, where for almost fifteen years he was in charge of the contemporary music department as well as director of the Contemporary Music Orchestra (until the pandemic). He has also taught modern piano and workshops for orchestras at the Nafplion Conservatory (where in 2011 he also created the contemporary music ensembles), as well as at other music schools in the country.
From 2005 until today, he has been running an original experimental laboratory with the main object of coding the narrative language of music, which, in addition to the educational institutions he collaborates with, has also been supported by dozens of independent musicians and groups, having presented original experimental material to date in dozens of indoor and outdoor concerts (Malliaropouleio Theatre, Alsus Agios Georgios Theatre, Tripolis Art Center amphitheater, Cabaret Voltaire Athens, etc.) with the support of many organizations (such as the Greek Center for Artistic Practice, the Municipality of Tripoli, the Prefecture of Arcadia (until 2010) , the Tripolis Community for Arts et al). The imediate success of the project led in 2015 to the expansion into other fields with the aim of including in the research other channels of human communication such as speech and movement, approaching in essence a more complete theatrical language. The first experimental cycle was completed in 2021 with the participation of mostly friends and collaborators from various fields such as actors, set designers, choreographers, etc, without, however, being able to present material due to the pandemic. So in 2022 he began writing the theoretical framework which was completed in 2024 in a two-volume work entitled "The Hedgehog and the Fox: The building block of human thought and communication" while many points of the method were "tested" in his first play the which was also completed in 2024, entitled "The Yellow Pirate".
In the summer of 2024, he created Arkadian Soundscapes, a series of live events with the aim of establishing a "conversation" between the natural landscape and various types of music. For the first Arcadian Soundscape, the autumn countryside of mountainous Arcadia was chosen as the "setting", whereas the industrial sounds of urban culture such as drum n bass and psy trance were chosen as the "soundtrack". The whole event included visuals also inspired by urban culture, and a special light show designed to highlight the scale of the surrounding mountainous landscape, without at the same time creating light pollution that hides other elements (such as the sky, the dark contours of the forest, the distant faint lights of the settlements, etc.). The concept was immediately embraced by the Greek Mountaineering Association of Tripoli who included it in the artistic events of the 1st Nestani Climbing Festival for 2024 and the first Arcadian Soundscape became a reality on October 5, 2024 under the Nestani rock just outside the village of Nestani in Arcadia, Greece, with the participation of hundreds of people, the interdisciplinary international award-winning architectural office Iraisynn Attinom that edited the visuals, and under the auspices of the Hellenic Mountaineering and Climbing Federation with the co-organization of the Municipality of Tripoli. Another 3 events are planned until February 2025.
Yorgos Panagiotopoulos is also the artistic director of a newly established regional photography festival of Peloponnese TRIPf’24, with the first photo exhibition "City Corners" to be organized on July 27 and 28, 2024 with the participation of 50 photographers from all over the Peloponnese, while the TRIPf’25 is already scheduled for July 2025. He has also from time to time professionally engaged in architectural design, restoration and renovation of listed buildings, statistical analysis as well as in research in certain fields of mathematics.
Licencing
My music is not on any big platforms as they try to exploit artists and pay less royalties than they should. My music is free for anyone to listen here and on bandcamp, if you like it and feel like buying me a cup of coffee you can do it through bandcamp or paypal at donate@arkadiansounds.com.
If you want to licence any of my pieces for your project, drop me an e-mail at licence@arkadiansounds.com regarding your project and the piece you want to use. However, if your project supports a cause worth supporting and has no budget (as usually is the case with these things) I will licence what you need without any obligation - or maybe I will make you some music from scratch.
If you want me to make some music for you story you can drop me an email at hello@arkadiansounds.com or reach me through social media, and tell me your story.
Yorgos Panagiotopoulos (aka arkadian sounds) was born in Athens in 1980 and grew up in Tripolis of Arcadia, Greece. At the age of 12, he presented his first compositions for piano at a concert of the local Community for Arts Club (F.O.T.), at the urging of composer Giorgos Katralis. He soon began writing for larger orchestras while constantly learning new instruments. At the age of 14 he came into contact with programming and in 2019 he was one of the first in Greece outside of the big studios to start using digital audio processing systems (DAW) for music production. For the next 13 years he experimented with both analog and digital electronic media, soundscapes, music for picture as well as traditional forms, with dozens of appearances both in the province and in the underground scene of Athens, in which from 1999 to 2001 he made a series of presentations with field recordings from the city streets, noise and long-hour musical forms, while with more conventional forms he has appeared from time to time with some of the most historic names of the Greek and world music scene such as Socrates (2006), Iron Butterfly (2008), ERT Symphony Orchestra (2008), Big Brother & The Holding Company (2009), Wishbone Ash (2010). At the same time, in 2004 he was invited to create the percussion, modern piano and electric bass departments at the Tripoli branch of the Attic Conservatory, while a few years later he created the first workshop for orchestras and the first department of music technology in the city - and one of the first in Greece in a conservatory. He plays more than 10 modern and traditional musical instruments such as drums, bass, acoustic and electric guitars, lute, baglama, bouzouki, mandolin and percussion instruments such as bendir, daire etc, while also being competent at accordion, recorder, davul and more. Since 2005 he is also one of the founders of the international music festival TRIPolis Rock Fest - one of the longest running in Greece - of which he is currently the artistic director.
In 2012 he moved to Athens where in the same year he wrote several pieces for chamber orchestra, synthtesizers and percussion for the theater performance True Stories which opened the 4th International Street Theater Festival, while the following year he wrote a collection of 11 works titled "The Swamp" for orchestra of traditional instruments, tape and polyphonic choir for the play The Frogs of Aristophanes (Helix Action Theatre), which never managed to get presented due to the financial crisis of the summer of '13. From 2014 he started working with production companies in London (Neon Tetra Films, Dark Valley) writing mainly music for picture. In 2015 he wrote the piece We carry your world for symphony orchestra, synthesizers, traditional percussion and samplers, commissioned for the International Transport Labor Federation (ITF Global) global campaign while in 2016 his symphonic electronic work The Human Temple which was originally written for the experimental theater performance Blessed Breasts (F. Tsardounis, Epi Kolonos, OFF/OFF Athens Festival), it was then released abroad (France, Australia, Japan) while being included in compilations and made available on all international streaming platforms by Audiosparx. The same happened two years later with the mixed symphonic piece Across the Fields, over the Mountains, Under the Open Skies which was commissioned for the UK Labor Party's annual conference opening video in 2018, while in the same year he was one of the composers comissioned to write music for the British National Health System's 70 year anniversary campaign (NHS).
In October 2018 he wrote as an unofficial soundtrack for the Spanish short film El Empleo the suite Les Jardins du Matin for chamber orchestra, a work which was chosen as one of the best among 150 composers from all over the world and presented at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron Music Hall of Athens).
Several of his works has been released in Australia by Xenon Entertainment, in France by Deezer, in Japan by AWA and in Russia by MTS Music and SkySound, while as of 2018 he is represented in 96 countries by Audiosparx. His works are also available on all international streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple music, Amazon music, Tidal, etc. while some of them have also been included in film music collections together with artists such as Hannah Woolmer, Voice of Men, etc.
At the same time, since 2009 he has been teaching contemporary composition and orchestration at the Tripoli branch of the Attica Conservatory, where for almost fifteen years he was in charge of the contemporary music department as well as director of the Contemporary Music Orchestra (until the pandemic). He has also taught modern piano and workshops for orchestras at the Nafplion Conservatory (where in 2011 he also created the contemporary music ensembles), as well as at other music schools in the country.
From 2005 until today, he has been running an original experimental laboratory with the main object of coding the narrative language of music, which, in addition to the educational institutions he collaborates with, has also been supported by dozens of independent musicians and groups, having presented original experimental material to date in dozens of indoor and outdoor concerts (Malliaropouleio Theatre, Alsus Agios Georgios Theatre, Tripolis Art Center amphitheater, Cabaret Voltaire Athens, etc.) with the support of many organizations (such as the Greek Center for Artistic Practice, the Municipality of Tripoli, the Prefecture of Arcadia (until 2010) , the Tripolis Community for Arts et al). The imediate success of the project led in 2015 to the expansion into other fields with the aim of including in the research other channels of human communication such as speech and movement, approaching in essence a more complete theatrical language. The first experimental cycle was completed in 2021 with the participation of mostly friends and collaborators from various fields such as actors, set designers, choreographers, etc, without, however, being able to present material due to the pandemic. So in 2022 he began writing the theoretical framework which was completed in 2024 in a two-volume work entitled "The Hedgehog and the Fox: The building block of human thought and communication" while many points of the method were "tested" in his first play the which was also completed in 2024, entitled "The Yellow Pirate".
In the summer of 2024, he created Arkadian Soundscapes, a series of live events with the aim of establishing a "conversation" between the natural landscape and various types of music. For the first Arcadian Soundscape, the autumn countryside of mountainous Arcadia was chosen as the "setting", whereas the industrial sounds of urban culture such as drum n bass and psy trance were chosen as the "soundtrack". The whole event included visuals also inspired by urban culture, and a special light show designed to highlight the scale of the surrounding mountainous landscape, without at the same time creating light pollution that hides other elements (such as the sky, the dark contours of the forest, the distant faint lights of the settlements, etc.). The concept was immediately embraced by the Greek Mountaineering Association of Tripoli who included it in the artistic events of the 1st Nestani Climbing Festival for 2024 and the first Arcadian Soundscape became a reality on October 5, 2024 under the Nestani rock just outside the village of Nestani in Arcadia, Greece, with the participation of hundreds of people, the interdisciplinary international award-winning architectural office Iraisynn Attinom that edited the visuals, and under the auspices of the Hellenic Mountaineering and Climbing Federation with the co-organization of the Municipality of Tripoli. Another 3 events are planned until February 2025.
Yorgos Panagiotopoulos is also the artistic director of a newly established regional photography festival of Peloponnese TRIPf’24, with the first photo exhibition "City Corners" to be organized on July 27 and 28, 2024 with the participation of 50 photographers from all over the Peloponnese, while the TRIPf’25 is already scheduled for July 2025. He has also from time to time professionally engaged in architectural design, restoration and renovation of listed buildings, statistical analysis as well as in research in certain fields of mathematics.
Licencing
My music is not on any big platforms as they try to exploit artists and pay less royalties than they should. My music is free for anyone to listen here and on bandcamp, if you like it and feel like buying me a cup of coffee you can do it through bandcamp or paypal at donate@arkadiansounds.com.
If you want to licence any of my pieces for your project, drop me an e-mail at licence@arkadiansounds.com regarding your project and the piece you want to use. However, if your project supports a cause worth supporting and has no budget (as usually is the case with these things) I will licence what you need without any obligation - or maybe I will make you some music from scratch.
If you want me to make some music for you story you can drop me an email at hello@arkadiansounds.com or reach me through social media, and tell me your story.