The title alludes to the church on top of Mount Athos where the Metamorphosis of Christ is celebrated: battered by storms each winter, lovingly restored each summer, the church symbolizes the constancy of Greek music as it changes through time and place.
These 14 short pieces celebrate the immense variety of art, folk and liturgical traditions practised by Greek musicians during some seven centuries of Ottoman rule: songs and dances from Asia Minor with flowing, asymmetrical Turkish rhythms are performed alongside Ottoman art music genres such as the sarki (preceded by a mournful improvisation for ney, a reed flute) by Armenian composer Tatyos Eskerjian, and the samai by the Greek composer Nikolakis. These are interspersed with songs and dances from the Dodecanese and other islands, Balkan rhythms from Thrace and psalms from the Orthodox liturgy in ancient Byzantine modes. Curiously, as though to reinforce the Ottoman connection, all the pieces, apart from the psalms, are identified in the notes by Turkish modes, or makams, although the Greek term dromos is normally used by local people for popular genres.
Beautifully recorded, this multi-ethnic Eastern Mediterranean soundscape, with its vibrant instrumental sonorities, is infused by the warm, full-bodied voice of ensemble leader Hristos Tsiamulis. A website address is provided for the songs, texts and photos of the instruments described in the notes.'