https://youtu.be/ecn9lkBrMRg?si=lSe60G5eaJS6XxWx

This video presents a small sample of the visit of the Violin Orchestra of the Department of Music Science and Art (TMET) of the University of Macedonia to 12 Music Schools in Greece and Cyprus. Each visit lasted about 120' minutes and included: (a) a concert of the Orchestra, (b) a seminar-discussion between its members and the students and teachers of the school on the study of traditional music in higher music education, especially at TMET, as well as issues related to the role of the violin family instruments in Greek traditional and urban folk music, and (c) a musical partnership of the Violin Orchestra with a musical ensemble from each music school.

The main objective of these actions is to highlight new aspects and ways of interpretation and orchestration of Greek traditional music by young students of Greek traditional music nowadays, while highlighting the continuity, musical evolution and cultural interaction between the two basic levels of music education, secondary and higher education. A further expected outcome of the actions is the development of a creative dialogue between the stakeholders and through their interaction and cooperation to produce new ideas and relationships that generate culture, aesthetics and knowledge, as well as the ultimate promotion of multiculturalism as a means of interactive and transactional coexistence. The ultimate goal, in the context of a visionary intercultural education, is to lay the first foundations for the creation of a network of international cultural educational institutions, through which Greek musical culture will be promoted and communicated beyond its national borders.

The “Violin Orchestra” was created in 2018. It is a twenty-five-member string bow orchestra of the students of the violin specialization of the Department of Traditional Music of the Department of Music Science & Art of the University of Macedonia, is a member of the Poetics Laboratory of the Department, and is part of the undergraduate course “String Bow Laboratory” of the Department of the same name. With already two personal albums under her belt, the main aim of the ensemble is to present a repertoire of mostly Greek, Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean music, as well as new contemporary compositions, through a creative prism of orchestration and application of older and more modern interpretative techniques of the bowed strings. It is an alternative musical proposal for the collaboration of the bowed strings with the aim of developing interactivity and the constant exploration of channels of musical communication between them with plenty of improvisation. The main objective of the Orchestra is to feed the field of expertise in the interpretation of bowed strings in general with new elements that will contribute to the emergence of the expressive specificity of the “language” of the violin family in various folk oral traditions. The Violin Orchestra has so far made more than 40 performances in prestigious venues, several of which have been fully subsidized by the Ministry of Culture.

• Music and sound education experiences, values, and practices
• Social musical settings

Giannis Zarias has been active as a violinist for three decades in the field of Greek music, while he is also involved in the wider music of the Balkans and improvisation. He is a founding member of the music groups : Rebetiko Trio, the contemporary string quartet Frog String Quartet and the Violione Orchestra (DMSA). He is also an assistant professor of violin at the Department of Music Science & Art (DMSA) of the University of Macedonia. His doctoral thesis "Ornamentation in Greek Traditional Violin Art" was published by Orpheus Publications (2013) and his research articles have been published in relevant music journals and other scientific publications.