Savina Yannatou

Savina Yannatou is a Greek soprano, improviser, and sometime guitarist. She is known for an uncommon, unique vocal style that incorporates traditional Mediterranean and Middle Eastern singing techniques and experimentation with throat singing, dissonance, and jazz improvisation. Beginning in 1979, she built her early reputation in Greece through live radio performances singing Baroque, Renaissance, and other songs from the Mediterranean Basin. In 1994 she issued her European and North African breakthrough album Spring in Salonika, her first with longtime collaborators Primavera en Salonico. Yannatou signed with ECM and released 2002's global smash Terra Nostra. 2008's Songs of an Other made the international charts. In 2010, she cut a duo set titled Attikos with bassist Barry Guy. 2012's Songs For Kommeno was recorded in collaboration with Gunter Baby Sommer, Floros Floridis, and others. 2015's Songs of Thessaloniki charted internationally and fueled sold-out tours of Europe and Asia. She teamed with Portuguese pianist Joana Sá on 2020's Ways of Notseeing. 2024's Kouartéto featured her in the company of Guy, Floridis, and drummer Ramon Lopez. 2025's Watersong was a thematic recording that included Primavera en Salonico and Tunisian vocalist Lamia Bedioui. Yannatou was born in Athens in 1959. She sang as a child, often with her sister; she also took some classical singing lessons that impacted her style. Her early influences included Joan Baez, whose strength as a woman in a male-dominated field she admired. Yannatou was trained as a classical musician at the Greek National Conservatory, at the Workshop of Vocal Arts in Athens, and later at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Beginning to work with folk traditions in a decidedly modernist approach she embraced the song traditions of Greece, Sardinia, Corsica, Israel, Turkey, Italy, Cyprus, Albania, Spain, Africa, the South American continent, and the Caribbean. She was hired as a house vocalist on Greek National Radio 3 Lillipoupoli under the direction of composer Manos Hadjidakis, her radio performances resonated with listeners. Word of mouth about the young singer spread globally. Yannatou was also deeply influenced by the vanguard electronica of pianist/composer Lena Platonos. They duo cut three albums together: 1981's Sabotage, 1982's 13 Songs, and 1983's To '62 by Manos Hadjidakis. She signed a recording deal with Lyra and released Nanourismata, her solo debut, in 1985; it was immediately followed by Tell Me About Apples in 1986. The international folk music that would later define her work wasn't employed by Yannatou until 1987, when Greek composer Nikos Kypourgos asked her to record several Greek lullabies for an album called Lullabies following his daughter's birth. She was reluctant to do it at all as she didn't want to be thought of as a folk singer, but the experience changed her outlook. 1987's Long Live King Alexander cemented her newfound commitment. She also re-teamed with Platonos on the indie pop set The Echo and Its Mistakes that year. Though she had experimented, Yannatou began veering more directly toward jazz and improvisational music when she formed Primavera en Salonico in 1993. The group focuses on a mix of European classical, Byzantine, traditional Greek, and Near Eastern music with instrumental and vocal improvisation. They create a vast international sound using a combination of Western instruments (guitar, violin, and double bass) and Eastern instruments, including toumbeleki, bendir, tambourine, daoul, kanonaki, ney, and tamboura. A year after coming together, Yannatou and Primavera en Salonico released Spring in Salonika in 1994, an album of folk songs from the Balkans. She followed it with Breaths in collaboration with Platonos. A pair of long-players with Primavera en Salonico -- Mediterranean: Songs of the Mediterranean and Virgin Maries of the World -- were released in 1998. Rosa das Rosas appeared in 2000. Yannatou marked the turn of the century by entering into a long relationship with Manfred Eicher's ECM label in addition to her contract with Lyra. Her ECM debut, Terra Nostra with Primavera en Salonico, appeared in 2000. Over the next year-and- a-half, she appeared on recordings by the Plucked String Orchestra of Patras and Nikos Kypourgos, as well as Nikos Mamangakis' score for the film Lilly's Story. In 2002, she issued the tribute recording Savina Yannatou Sings Manos Hadjidakis on Lyra. This was followed by appearances on other artists' recordings, including Michalis Grigoriou's Μπλέ (2003) and Nikos Kypourgos' Garden Theater (2004). In 2005, she sang on Vojislav Ivanović's Levantina and returned to recording for ECM as a guest on Anders Jormin's Electra; she also released her own Sumiglia with Primavera en Salonico. Also in 2005, Yannatou appeared in The Bacchae, the first of five plays in which she would participate, directed by Sotiris Hatzakis. In 2006, Yannatou and Primavera en Salonico collaborated with Sardinian vocalist Elena Ledda and composer/multi-instrumentalist Mauro Palmas on the album Tutti Baci for Lyra. She also expanded her musical relationship with composer Nikos Mamangakis, which resulted in her becoming a formal member of his ensemble. Commencing in 2006, she recorded extensively with him, appearing on eight of his albums through 2011. The year 2007 saw the release of her own Musique des Chambres on Lyra, followed by Songs of an Other for ECM in 2008. Over the next two years, Yannatou appeared on recordings by Orchestra οf the Colours, Stella Gadedi, Felizol, Michalis Siganidis, and Soma, released on a variety of labels. In 2010 she recorded the now-classic Attikos with British jazz bassist Barry Guy on Maya. After an extended period spent touring with Primavera en Salonico and on sabbatical, Yannatou and the band returned to recording. Songs of Thessaloniki appeared from ECM in May of 2015. She took another recording hiatus to tour, write, and arrange new material. In 2020, Yannatou collaborated with vanguard Portuguese pianist, composer, and improviser Joana Sá on Ways of Notseeing for the avant jazz and improv label Clean Feed. In May 2023, Yannatou, Greek jazz clarinetist/saxophonist Floros Floridis, Guy, and drummer/percussionist Ramon Lopez entered Hydra's Old Carpet Factory Studio with engineer Vasilis Korres and with Lopez producing. They emerged with Kouartéto on Maya, billed to the Hydra Quartet. The album consists of a partially composed/partially improvised 13-part suite titled Ydra. Released in October 2024, they took it on tour. Prior to that release, in March 2022, Yannatou and Primavera en Salonico had entered Athens' Sierra Studios. They enlisted Tunisian singer and storyteller Lamia Bedioui (the women have worked together ever since) for an album based on the dual theme of water -- as life-sustaining source and mortal threat. They cut a slew of tracks, then set them aside as both singers had extended touring obligations. They returned to the Athens studio in March 2024 to complete the 14-track Watersong on ECM. Its material crossed time, geographies, and spaces in songs delivered in languages ranging from Greek and Arabic to those from Western European countries. It appeared in April 2025. ~ Craig Harris & Thom Jurek, Rovi