"A “meeting of spirits” was the title of the concert in the famous Bimhuis Club, Amsterdam in May 2010 with Greek singer Savina Yannatou and legendary bassist Barry Guy . Their music consisted of free improvisations and a composition by Barry Guy, alongside two traditional song arrangements.
What had started a few years earlier in Zurich during the Taktlos festival lead to a concert of immense intensity full of magic, virtuosity, humour, endless musical inventions and ease of communication.
In 2014 Barry Guy invited Savina to join The Blue Shroud Band and she is also the soloist in his major composition Time Passing... for strings, soprano, baritone, improvising voice and bass.


Savina Yannatou & Barry Guy - Music Unlimited Wels, Austria, 2014-11-08
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aD01TffODs



Reviews

ATTIKOS

“Savina Yannatou is a classically trained, avantleaning singer who embraces an eclectic array of Mediterranean musics and vocal techniques. On Attikos she joins veteran bassist Barry Guy for a live set of originals, covers and free improv recorded at Amsterdam’s Bimhuis. Working with the visual metaphor
of a skyward-spiraling performance space
with new music on each oor, the powerful
set begins and ends with amazing empathy, bassist and vocalist mirroring, shadowing and completing each other, without overt imitation, like the intercoiled snakes of Mercury’s sta . Yannatou alludes to greater Greece in its various guises: keening throatsung harmonics throughout the improvised tracks; the poignant “Sumiglia”, a traditional Corsican melody; the Sephardic- avored “Nani Nani” and the garbled glossolalia of her scatted ‘languages”.
(Tom Greenland)


ART ACTS St. Johann in Tirol

Das große, unwiderstehliche Erlebnis der diesjährigen artacts ereignet sich an der einzigen Gerberei-Außenstelle, der Antoniuskapelle, die Künstler und Publikum dank des ignoranten Christenpersonals ungeheizt, also eiskalt empfängt. Vor dem Altar musiziert allerdings ein Duo, das niemanden kaltlässt: BARRY GUY & SAVINA YANNATOU. Was auf der prachtvollen CD Attikos (Maya Recordings) partiell nachzuhören ist, inklusive feiner Nadelstiche ins Herz, erschließt sich in ihrer ganzen Dimension in der Liveperformance: Die griechische Vokalartistin zieht sämtliche Register ihres Ausdrucksvermögens. Von freier Improvisation führt der Weg über spoken word-Poetry bis zu Gesängen, die weit hinunter ins Barock und in die Renaissance reichen. Guy sekundiert mit streckenweise unfassbarer Könnerschaft, einer Könnerschaft nämlich, die berührt. Ein seltener Glücksfall, Gänsehäute en masse, feuchte Äuglein allerorten, Ovationen Ende nie.
(Andreas Fellinger, Freistil Magazine)


SAVINA YANNATOU

“Dark-toned but ambrosial, highly disciplined yet seemingly bursting with a soul of pure ame, the rather staggering Athens-born singer Savina Yannatou is a virtuosic chameleon adept at an extensive range of vocal traditions (and languages) from the Mediterranean region - not just interpreting but leaping o from these old folk musics with a daring, exploratory technique and far- ung tonal scope that allows her to stamp it all with a brash intelligence and some might say punky attitude. There’s not a thing dried-up or academic about her new takes on ancient songs. Yannatou really lets the blood out of these songs, brazenly improvising on them, as if called by some inner primal force, kneeding and kneedling them, caressing them, smearing their borders and launching out something entirely new in the process.”
(John Payne, L.A. Weekly)

CD

2006, ATTIKOS Maya RecordingsMCD1002