Nikos Charalabous

I was born (and live since then) in Athens in 1967. I began my music quest at the age of 15 playing (trying to play) acoustic and electric guitar. A couple of years later I started exploring Greek traditional and folk music through bouzouki, tzouras, baglamas, oud, cumbus and saz (I’m Greek after all, and honestly, I believe that if you don’t know about your country’s music, then you don’t know anything). I’ve played with several bands - from blues and hard rock to ethnic, Greek folk and “artistic” (entechno) music - growing, learning, traveling, enjoying, and understanding myself through music. At the same time I got a day job (holding it until today) trying to avoid treating music as “a job”. Self-taught until that time, I decided I need more, so I started taking private lessons with teachers like Pete Lallis, Vasilis Rakopoulos and Haig Yazdjian. After a few years, in 1996, I met Petros Synodinos and participated in the recording of his LP “Piso ap to tzami” (Behind the glass), playing bouzouki. At the same time I joined Petros’s band playing electric guitar, tzouras, oud and cumbus and in parallel I took my first steps in guitar teaching. In 2003 and after several dozens of live appearances, TV shows and endless rehearsing, I participated in the recording of Petros’s new LP “Allages thermokrasias” (Temperature changes) playing electric and acoustic guitars. After breaking up with the band and until today, I kept playing, teaching, and experimenting, continuing that endless journey and passionately remaining (I hope) an “amateur musician”.

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