•  ABOUT  •

IOANNIS STRATAKIS

   Long time active in classical music, now having passed the traditional ‘mezzo del cammin’, some 33+ years ago I got intrigued by the doubts surrounding the pronunciation of the language of the Ancient Greeks and started gathering relevant information. Fascinated by many ancient texts and opinions of wise (+not so wise) academics across the centuries on this matter, I ventured fitting together the scattered pieces of information in the hope of experiencing and reproducing in living, spoken sound a glimpse of what their knowledge, their thoughts, feelings and their poetry was about.

   The result of this attempt, partially also here presented, combines interest in the classics, a long time involvement in the subtleties of professional music performance and creation, sound editing, and aesthetic considerations adding as much gritty sociolinguistic realism as an artist can afford. Thus, when lacking crucial information, I’ve allowed myself the use of the above within what I instinctively consider human language… Since a couple of years I’m affiliated with the study group of Ancient Greek prosody at the University of Athens. These are my tools.

   Apart from my involvement with the ancient Greek language, I enjoy playing the viola with the friends of the Greek National Radio Symphony Orchestra and other inspiring musicians. I love reading and preparing my texts on any available moment of day and/or night and answering questions of the curious among us. I admire all those incredible people who support knowledge, better known as scientists. Being an artist, though, I’m here to just present things, profiteering from the security artistic freedom guaranties — until further notice.

  My greatest wish is to create an audible record of surviving Ancient Greek texts, the way a contemporary person understands how that language must have sounded.
My work is mainly based on ancient evidence, descriptions written by the very people of that distant past, who heard, learned and spoke it and were so kind το leave us a written testimony of their pronunciation and their ways of verbal expression.

Thank you for your interest and support :-)