Sounds of Cyprus is a world music ensemble dedicated to celebrating the rich musical heritage of Cyprus. Co-founded by musician, educator, and Broadway artist Peter Douskalis and vocalist Elena Chris, the group performs the traditional music of Cyprus in varying orchestrations and styles that both consciously honor the time period of composition and period instruments as well as perform with a modern approach.
With a mission to preserve and promote Cypriot music, Sounds of Cyprus blends traditional folk melodies with contemporary arrangements, creating a unique and immersive experience for audiences. The ensemble’s performances feature a variety of traditional Cypriot instruments alongside Western influences, showcasing the vibrant sounds of the island’s past and present.
Musical arrangements range from traditional ethnomusicological demonstrations, highlighting the island's multilingual and intercultural history, blending historically accurate representations of Cypriot music in the Greek, Turkish, and Arabic dialects of the island, to contemporary bridging of folk melodies with global rhythmic influences. This includes blending traditional instruments with contemporary instruments and folk melodies with jazz, rock, or hip-hop grooves.
The group has been recognized and supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, Queens Arts Fund, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture Decentralization Program. Their work has also been featured in the New York Public Library archive as part of the 7 Stories Up series, under the auspices of the Consulate General of the Republic of Cyprus in New York and funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
Through live performances, educational outreach, and collaborations with international artists, Sounds of Cyprus fosters dialogue between cultures and strengthens the musical connection between Cyprus and the global community.
"The tradition is authentic and not conformist. We had the special pleasure of enjoying a wonderful musical evening at Kapedes yesterday. Our two youngins, Peter and Elena, who live in New York and carry our musical tradition with love there, keeping the memory of our country indelible among our expatriates, but also bringing to the USA as our genuine ambassadors of the tradition of Cyprus.
A simple yet authentic and magical event...
Thanks to the community board of Kapedes and especially to our friend and President of the community board, Andreas Kitromilidis, who hosted the event, as well as to the Deputy Ministry of Culture who provides opportunities for such musical encounters."
- Michalis Socratous (Secretary General of the Union of Cyprus Municipalities)
"Sounds of Cyprus, they're doing an amazing job! They are really good artists and I...] intellectual people who really care about what they do. They really know the music, they are sensitive people.
They care about tradition and I think that they understand that tradition is sometimes synonymous to evolution. They are people of our time... Being a creative, and knowing what you want to do with tradition, and how you want to transmit tradition ...deliver traditions to the next generations... this is something unique.
- Alkinoos loannidis, WNYE 91.5FM Cosmos FM interview
“It’s a unique project in many ways, anyone who knows anything about traditional music in Cyprus, for many years it was a very static event, we didn’t have, and I was always jealous of this, we didn’t have the many young people that you have in Greece who pick up the traditional instruments, they’re very proud of their local heritage and they pursue and revive and continue the sounds of their locale, so I was very encouraged by what the Sounds of Cyprus are doing, and what they’re doing is not just a repeat of the traditional sound, they’ve also taken it a step further, maybe more than a step, and that basically has to do a lot with the fact that they are very professional in what they do, they really have command of not just their instruments, but the music as well…
…They have really delved into the whole spectrum of traditional Cypriot music, as you know Cyprus is a multifaceted, multilayered culture… if you look at Cyprus it is literally at the crossroad of civilizations, every civilization that we admire, that we look back on in history, have passed through Cyprus and have left something and the Cypriots have always managed to use that, advance that, and to a certain extent to make it their own.”
- Michalis Firillas - Consul General of the Republic of Cyprus in New York speaking at the New York Public Library - Stavros Niarchos Library
