Haris (Haroula) Tsalpara is an Athens-based musician, singer, composer and musicologist whose work brings Greek-language urban and traditional music of the Eastern Mediterranean into dialogue with contemporary creation, theatre, improvisation and experimentation. Voice, piano and accordion are at the core of her musical practice.

A graduate of the Department of Music Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a classically trained pianist, she has been professionally active since 2005. Her long-term research into 78 rpm recordings, modal systems, folk modes, improvisation and historical vocal practices has become a central part of her artistic identity.

This research gave rise to 88 EAST (formerly PianOLAternA), her solo piano-and-voice project exploring the piano as an instrument for modal music, taksim and Greek-language urban and folk repertoire. Three releases have appeared under the project’s former name, and it has been presented at events including TEDxPatras and Anopolis World Music Festival.

In 2025, Tsalpara released her first solo album, Anadysi, combining six spoken-word poetry pieces and seven original songs with modal, electronic and experimental sound worlds. She is also a member of Seanefa, a duo with Chrysoula Kechagioglou exploring the meeting point between traditional and experimental sound.

Since 2016, she has maintained an ongoing international presence through concerts, tours, residencies and artistic productions across Europe and the Mediterranean. Her collaborations include Compagnie MPTA, Boxing Piano in Geneva and L’Art Rue in Tunis, while her work has been presented in Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Tunisia and Turkey.

Her theatre work includes a long-standing collaboration with bijoux de kant and director Yannis Skourletis, both as performer and composer. She has also collaborated for four years with the Ilias Karellas Theatre Company at the Athens Concert Hall and appeared as pianist in Mataroa on the Horizon, a co-production of the Greek National Opera and the National Theatre of Greece.

Alongside her artistic work, Tsalpara designs and leads workshops on modal systems, improvisation, historical vocal interpretation and Greek-language Eastern Mediterranean repertoire. She created and coordinated the Paréa JAM Sessions from 2023 to 2025, served as Lead Project Manager of Lava Music Festival from 2021 to 2023, and has been part of the leadership of APTALIKO NPO since 2017. Since 2026, she has been a member of the Scientific Council of the Nikos Poulantzas Institute.

At the heart of her work is an understanding of tradition as a living field of memory, research and transformation — one that can continually be reimagined in dialogue with the present.