Biography

  Eirini was born in 1997 in Corinth, Greece. Her relationship with music started at the age of 7 with the classical guitar. This first contact led her to audition for the music school of her hometown, in which she graduated in 2015 with a new instrument in hand, the bouzouki.

  The bouzouki was the music bridge that helped her to approach the folk and urban music of Greece and especially Rebetiko. From her teenage years she knew that she wanted to continue her studies in music on an academic level. After years of preparation, in 2016, she got accepted into the Department of Music science and arts(Thessaloniki) and started her bachelor programme with specialization on the three string bouzouki. 

  Moving to Thessaloniki was essential for her music career because of the variety of music genres that co-exist in the city, genres that Eirini wasn't familiar with. Due to the geographic position of the city, she came in touch with the modal music of different neighborhood countries and learned about the folk traditions of the South Macedonia region and its paganistic celebrations. 

  Through these years she had the luck to participate in a series of festivals in Greece and abroad, through her conservatoire and out of it. Aside from being a bachelor music student, Eirini gradually started working as a freelance musician and a bouzouki teacher. 

  Rebetiko was the main focus inside and outside her bachelor studies during her university years in Thessaloniki, alongside the greek bouzouki, which also had a significant role in the rebetiko genre. Through her study curriculum she had the chance to decode, learn and analyze hundreds of gramophone recordings of the urban greek music that were created in the 20th century. 

  Alongside with the new music influences, came also a new instrument. Eirini started learning the oud during her 3rd year in Thessaloniki, out of curiosity. With the oud she found a totally new way to express her musical identity. Her contact with the instrument wasn’t so stable at first, until she decided to apply for an erasmus exchange programme the following year. 

  In 2019, she got accepted as an exchange student in the Codarts Conservatorium of Rotterdam for a semester. Due to the absence of bouzouki centered lessons, Eirini took the opportunity to focus more on the oud but simultaneously to experiment with the bouzouki outside of its music shell. The environment abroad helped her to broaden her creativity and musicality more and led to a series of events that made her decide to audition for the Master’s programme of Codarts Conservatoire. 

  Outside of the institutional experiences, Eirini started gaining experience in organizations and festivals. She started attending seminars hosted from the Labyrinth organization and also did her internship in the Music Village(Agios Lavrentios). 

  After Covid, she graduated from Thessaloniki and moved to the Netherlands to start her second degree in music, with greater attention on the oud. During her stay abroad, she got the opportunity to meet several musicians and dive into new music genres. Using both the bouzouki and the ud, Eirini created and participated in several projects. Furthermore, affected by all the musical information, she gradually started creating her own music. 

  In the year of 2022 she got accepted in two music residencies. The first was the Medinea orchestra and the second the Halaqat orchestra. Both experiences enriched her musicality and experimentation, by collaborating with Jazz musicians for an intensive time and taking her out of her comfort zone.  

  In her final year abroad Eirini started organizing rebetiko workshops in a way to communicate this genre with more people and also for her to develop her learning process and teaching abilities. In 2023-2024, Eirini managed to teach the Rebetiko workshop in Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin and Istanbul while simultaneously continuing giving bouzouki lessons online or in person.

From September(2024) Eirini is based in Athens,Greece.