Sokratis Sinopoulos

Greek musician Sokratis Sinopoulos is a contemporary master of the lyra, a bowed instrument that dates back to the Byzantine era. His playing is delicate and nuanced yet highly expressive, and his proficiency on the instrument has been widely acclaimed. He's equally comfortable crossing genre boundaries into jazz and classical, as he is to staying true to folk traditions of Greece and Eastern Mediterranean. Born in Athens in 1974, he studied Byzantine music and classical guitar as a child, and began playing the lyra in 1988, under the instruction of Ross Daly. Sinopoulos' remarkable talent was immediately apparent, and he joined Daly's group Labyrinthos a year later. He became highly prolific, contributing to recordings by countless musicians including Eleni Karaindrou for ECM, Charles Lloyd for Blue Note and Jean Guihen Queyras for Harmonia Mundi. He has also recorded with the French baroque ensemble L’ Achéron for Fuga Libera and with the Turk kemençe virtuoso Derya Türkan for Seyir Musik. In 2010, he formed Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet with pianist Yann Keerim, bassist Dimitris Tsekouras, and drummer Dimitris Emmanouil. The debut album of the quartet “Eight Winds”, was produced by Manfred Eicher for ECM records and received excellent reviews globally. The second album of the quartet “Metamodal”, was released in 2019. Sokratis Sinopoulos is a professor of music in the Department of Music Science and Art in the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece.