George: the collector's edition vinyl of Efthimis Filippou & Panagiotis Melidis (Larry Gus) is released

Photo: Stelios Tzetzias

A collector’s edition record released by US label FourFour Records and Onassis Foundation is giving rise to a performance premiere at Onassis Stegi. The concept, music, style, story, and words of the work are the creation of author and screenwriter Efthimis Filippou and composer Panagiotis Melidis (aka Larry Gus). Their partnership is sealed by the involvement of BAFTA and Emmy award-winning actor Ben Whishaw as the voice of the narrator.

The creative team had this to say about the idea that became a vinyl: “‘George’ is a record born out of a conversation Efthimis and Panagiotis had in December 2018. It is the story about the final days in the life of a man aged around 65 – a man called George. Panagiotis handed Efthimis a hard drive filled with original music. Efthimis then wrote the text in November 2019. Among the first musical ideas was a piece titled “Super Soft Guitar” but the music, in its original form, would be abandoned and re-written from scratch during the first half of 2020. The work’s title changed many times. The only song to feature on the record was written specially for the Corfu Men’s Choir. The record runs for 40 minutes and 35 seconds. Ben Whishaw recorded his narration in London.

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“One might think of ‘George’ as a record in the 1960s spoken word album tradition, or simply as a story told by a certain someone in among musical interludes. The music is inspired by Handel’s organ concertos and Scarlatti’s sonatas, and by the works of Violetta Parra, Moondog (particularly those written for the organ), Sohail Rana, and Nikos Xydakis. The chord changes and tonal shifts in the song performed by the Corfu Men’s Choir mirror the peculiar palindromic nature of the lyrics. The choral performance is pared back, without the addition any effects, and was recorded in a small hall set inside the Corfu Town Hall in July 2020.
“Vasilis Marmatakis designed the record cover in June 2021.”