Invited by Lina Lalandi, founder of the English Bach Festival and clavichordist, Domna Samiou made five appearances in the festival, presenting, in what could be the first time, the authentic traditional music of Greece to the English audience.
The concerts were given in 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1980, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, at the St John's Smith Square musical venue, at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, and at the Roundhouse.
Domna remembers how the meeting and invitation occurred:
In 1971, when I started singing in front of audience at the "Rodeo Club" (see The first concerts), Mrs Lina Lalandi, who had founded the English Bach Festival in London, was here in Athens. She invited Simon Karas to participate, but he didn't want to because, as I recall, the 150th anniversary of the Greek Revolution was to be celebrated at that time. Karas could not go, so Mrs Lalandi approached me and told me: 'Come to London to sing heroic songs'. 'I, in London?' [I thought]. I was afraid to go, ashamed. She convinced me. I set up a group and we went to London in April. That too was a new beginning. Because the following year Mrs Lalandi invited us to go again, with an even bigger group. After that, I participated four times in the Bach Festival.
A selection of published reviews:
The Times, 13/05/1974
London's musical public is so capricious, often so ungrateful, that it was good to see the Queen Elizabeth Hall filled to overflowing on Saturday night, the audience clapping its pleasure at the end in time to those on stage.
Since often, nowadays, folk importations are sophisticated out of all recognition or else impossibly naive, it was a delight to be offered something at once so authentic and so fluent in stage presentation.
Whatever the context, ceremonial or gay, it was only by reading the programme-book that you became aware of underlying rhythmic complexities. On stage it all looked like child's play. Joan Chissell, The Times, 13/05/1974
The Financial Times, 13/05/1974
The Greek element in the English Bach festival which mixes music of the 17th century and of our day erupted on Saturday evening in a full-scale programme by Domna Samiou’s Athenian company of folk singers and dancers. Ronald Crichton, The Financial Times, 13/05/1974
The Daily Telegraph, 22/04/1975
Greek music and dance is more pleasurably at home in the open air or the tavernas of its native land than in a London concert hall. But Domna Samiou and her group compensated for the formal surroundings of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where they appeared as part of the English Bach Festival, by the vigour of their performance and the regional variety of their program. K. S. W., The Daily Telegraph, 22/04/1975
The Times, 23/04/1975
Miss Samiou's troupe, of which she is the leading and most affecting singer, gave us a formidable conspectus of her fellow countrymen's folk song and dance, a survey that obviously derived from genuine sources and was given without extraneous or distracting aids. Sometimes the artistry is considerable, and even when it is not, the music itself is usually fascinating enough. Alan Blyth, The Times, 23/04/1975
The Financial Times, 23/04/1975
What may appear at a casual glance to be the sideshows of the English Bach Festival are in fact a calculated plan to expand our horizons, increase our knowledge and intensify our pleasure.
Miss Samiou herself, diminutive and determined as a Greek Marie Rambert, contributed plaintive songs, and there was a striking singer, Christos Sikkis, from Cyprus. Ronald Crichton, The Financial Times, 23/04/1975
Domna Samiou was accompanied by the following collaborators:
9th English Bach Festival, 1971. The concert took place in the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall (2/5/1971). Singers: Domna Samiou, Christos Panoutsos, Chryssoula Sifogiorgaki, Spyros Sifogiorgakis. Musicians: Vassilis Skaliotis, clarinet, Alekos Pavlou-Arapakis, violin, Aristides Moschos, santur, Thanassis Platanias, lute, Spyros Sifogiorgakis, cretan lyra and Aristides Vasilaris, flute and percussion.
11th English Bach Festival, 1973. The concerts took place in the St John’s Smith Square (4/5/1973) and in the Sheldonian Theatre (6/5/2073). Singers: Domna Samiou, Christos Bayraktaris, Thalia Spanou. Musicians: Nikos Stefanidis, kanun and oud, Christos Bayraktaris, pontic lyra, Antonis Spanos, flute and tsambouna and Fotis Tsilipanos, flute and goblet drum.
12th English Bach Festival, 1974. The concert took place in the Queen Elizabeth Hall (2/5/1974). Singers: Domna Samiou, Christos Bayraktaris, Theopoula Doitsidi, Lambriana Doitsidi, Karyofyllis Doitsidis, Miltiades Mastoras. Musicians: Napoleon Saadedin, clarinet, Alekos Pavlou-Arapakis, violin, Christos Bayraktaris, pontic lyra, Aristides Moschos, santur, Karyofyllis Doitsidis, oud, Theodoros Kekes gaida (bagpipe), and kaval, Miltiades Mastoras, lute and Petros Athanasopoulos-Kalyvas, flute and percussion. Folk dance: Theopoula Doitsidi, Lambriana Doitsidi, Kostas Nikalaidis, Kostas Petridis, Aristides Sachpatzidis and Yannis Lois.
13th English Bach Festival, 1975. The concerts took place in the Queen Elizabeth Hall (21/4/1975) and in the Round House Theater (22/4/1975). Singers: Domna Samiou, Antonis Peristeris, Christos Sikkis. Musicians: Vassilis Skaliotis, clarinet, Alekos Pavlou-Arapakis, violin, Aristides Moschos, santur, Antonis Peristeris, cretan lyra and flute, Vangelis Psathas, zournas, Miltiades Mastoras, lute, Ilias Nikiforakis, lute, Petros Athanasopoulos-Kalyvas, flute and percussion and Yiorgos Psathas, daouli (davul). Folk dance: Stella Doura, Kaiti Doura, Chryssoula Chairopoulou, Amalia Markatzi, Lefteris Drandakis, Andreas Patsalidis, Vassilis Douras and Glafkos Charmantas.
18th English Bach Festival, 1980. The concert took place in the Queen Elizabeth Hall (7/5/1980). Singers: Domna Samiou and Manolis Filippakis. Musicians: Manolis Filippakis, karpathian lyra, Petros Athanasopoulos-Kalyvas, clarinet, flute, pipiza and oud, Mathios Ventouris, lute. Chanters: Lykourgos Angelopoulos and The Greek Byzantine Choir.
