Audiovisual Archive

The Digital Database on the Music Culture of the North Aegean was created through the collaboration of the Sociological and Cultural Digital Documentation Lab of the Department of Sociology of the University of the Aegean, with Professor Sotiris Chtouris as the Scientific Director, and the Image, Sound and Cultural Representation Lab (ISCRL) of the Cultural Technology and Communication Department of the University of the Aegean, with Professor Dimitris Papageorgiou as the Scientific Director.

This also includes the section entitled ‘Ark of the Aegean – musical crossroads of the Aegean Sea, Lesbos 19th-20th century’, a comprehensive archive of traditional songs, archives and biographies of traditional singers, instruments, etc., which is accessible to all.

The data come from five research documentation programmes.

The first and second (contemporary) on-site fieldwork in the Northeast Aegean took place at the initiative of Nikos Dionysopoulos from 1986 to 1991.

The third research endeavour was completed by an interdisciplinary team collaborating in the framework of the ‘Ark of the Aegean’ research programme, under the scientific directorship of Professor Sotiris Chtouris from September 1995 to September 1998.

The fourth research endeavour was completed in the framework of the project: ‘Development of a model integrated information system for the hosting, management and exploitation of the cultural content of the Aegean musical tradition’, with Professors Sotiris Chtouris and Dimitris Papageorgiou as scientific directors.

The fifth research documentation programme (1 March 2007 – 30 June 2009) was completed in the framework of the project: ‘Creation of an interactive multimedia application for the recording and promotion of the Music Culture of the North Aegean – Ikaria’, with Professor Sotiris Chtouris as the scientific director.

During the project, a total of more than 1,200 items in the form of audio, DAT or video tapes and 1,000 photographs were digitized. After a selection, they were documented and are available to the public through the collection titled Collection of Cultural Data Projection of the Musical Culture of the Northern Aegean which is hosted in the institutional repository of the University of the Aegean.

The collection continues to be updated gradually with new documents with the aim of making all the research material available to the general public.