ILS Newsletter – May 2026 | Issue 03

The Lyre’s Dream: A Musical Bridge Between Greece and Canada

From the Senate of Canada to the schools of Montreal, The Lyre’s Dream became a profound journey of music, education, and cultural connection.

One of the most moving moments of the project was the presentation at the Senate of Canada, hosted by Senator Leo Housakos, whose support and vision made this extraordinary event possible. Among the distinguished guests were ambassadors, senators, consuls, representatives of the diplomatic community, and many honored attendees. The presence of Mr. J. Greg Peters, Usher of the Black Rod – one of the most historic ceremonial offices of the Canadian Parliament – added a particularly symbolic and memorable dimension to the occasion.

The event opened with the Canadian national anthem performed alongside the unique sound of the ancient Greek lyre and bass lyre (barbitos), creating a deeply symbolic musical bridge between Canada and Greece. Dr. Nikolaos Xanthoulis performed and presented the ancient lyre, while Ilias Zervas performed the bass lyre (barbitos).

The evening continued with narrations by students featuring passages from the Odyssey, the Iliad, and the Song of Songs, followed by the presentation of three musical works from The Lyre’s Dream: Epitaph of Seikilos, Dialogues of Love, and Pythionikos. The soloists for these performances were the lyric singers and project directors Dimitris Ilias and Maria Diamantis, whose interpretations brought the works vividly to life.

Christos Filandrianos served as Master of Ceremonies, while the EMSB Chorale, under the direction of maestra Marie-Ève Arseneau, contributed beautifully to the performance and overall artistic vision of the project.

The presentation was met with remarkable warmth and enthusiasm, becoming a memorable celebration of cultural dialogue, artistic collaboration, and the timeless voice of the ancient Greek musical tradition.

The journey continued with educational presentations and performances at Rosemount High School, Royal Vale School, and Socrates III School in Montreal, where students had the opportunity to encounter the sound, history, philosophy, and cultural legacy of the ancient Greek musical world through live demonstrations and discussion.

The Lyre’s Dream continues to build bridges between ancient and modern worlds through music, education, and shared cultural experience.

The Lyre’s Dream | The Canadian National Anthem

Anecdote of the Month

The Great Line by Kostas Paskalis

A few days before the premiere of Macbeth, starring Kostas Paskalis at the Greek National Opera in 1988, the two of us were having coffee one morning at the canteen of our beloved Lambros Matsikas.

At the time, I was president of the Greek National Opera Orchestra Association, and problems were never in short supply.

At one point, I asked him:
“Where have you not performed, Mr. Director?”

“Yes,” he replied, “it is true that I have performed in many places around the world. But listen to my advice: don’t ask someone where he has been – ask him where he has been more than once…”

(as narrated by Nikos Xanthoulis)

Lucian’s Harmonides

Today, we will present Lucian’s Harmonides.

It is a work about an ambitious aulos (double reed) player and his anxious desire to become famous.

Lucian of Samosata lived in the 2nd century CE and wrote within the spirit of what is known as the Second Sophistic, a period marked by the display of rhetorical brilliance, the imitation of classical models, and, quite often, the glittering surface of things rather than their substance.

Summary

Harmonides is presented as an exceptionally talented aulos player. Yet technical perfection and true artistic substance are not enough for him. What overwhelms him is an intense ambition for glory: he wants to astonish his audience and thereby become unforgettable.

He takes part in a musical contest and, in his attempt to impress, plays with excessive force and passion. His desire to surpass everyone else and win admiration drives him to extremes. In the end, his excessive effort has a tragic outcome: he dies during the performance, exhausted by the intensity of his own playing.

Meaning and Interpretation

Lucian uses this story to satirize:

• the vanity of artists who pursue fame instead of substance
• excess and display in art
• the human need for recognition and posthumous fame, even at the cost of life itself

The message is clear: Art that serves glory rather than truth leads to self-destruction – and excessive ambition can become both ridiculous and tragic at the same time.

Harmonides functions as an anti-sophistic commentary: it does not merely satirize a musician, but an entire age that worships appearances.

1. Structure and Technique

The text is characteristically Lucianic:

• brief and sharp
• built around a dramatic climax – death in the very act of performance
• marked by the narrator’s ironic distance

Lucian does not moralize directly. He allows the event itself to stand as a cautionary example.

2. The Theme of Hubris

The case of Harmonides almost resembles tragedy:

• excessive ambition
• transgression of limits
• destruction

The idea of hubris – although it is not stated explicitly – is clearly present.

The artist does not serve art. He wants to bend it to his own glory.

Harmonides is not merely ambitious. He is technically accomplished. And this is crucial.

Lucian is not attacking incompetence, but something far more modern: hyper-technical performance without measure.

This brings us to an almost timeless opposition:

• art as expression
• art as a display of virtuosity

Harmonides chooses the second – and quite literally burns himself out because of it.

Relation to Contemporary Artists

If we were to bring this into the present day, Harmonides could be:

• a virtuoso who plays in order to impress
• a performer chasing viral success
• an artist who sacrifices depth for applause

The irony is that Harmonides does indeed achieve glory – but only through his death. This is the most Lucianic point of all: his success proves to be, at the very same time, his absolute failure.

The text is not only satire. It is also an existential commentary:

What does it mean to “be heard”?

What is the value of being remembered by others?

Harmonides wants to become immortal through art –

but he becomes immortal as an example of excess.

The Dorian Harmonia

From Dorian harmonia to the modern musical experience

Any reference to ancient Greek music is often accompanied by an almost impossible question: what did it sound like?

The answer is, and will remain, incomplete. The surviving musical evidence is extremely limited, the theoretical sources are fragmentary, and, most importantly, they come mainly from learned writers rather than from practicing musicians. Yet perhaps this is not the most fruitful question. Instead of searching for an unattainable sonic reconstruction, we may turn to something more substantial: which elements of ancient musical thought can give meaning to modern listening?

Within this framework, the concept of the mese in the Dorian harmonia becomes particularly interesting. The mese, as described in ancient theory, is not merely a note, but an axis of organization. It functions as a point of reference, balance, and structural coherence. We do not have sufficient evidence to know with certainty exactly how it operated in practice; however, both the theoretical testimonies and the few surviving musical examples suggest a clear sense of centrality.

The ancient sources document the existence of the “power” or functional character of notes, as well as the differentiation of their significance within the system, without explicitly attributing to the mese a function equivalent to the modern tonic. Nevertheless, the impression created when this function is described is that of a tonal center.

Let us look at the framework within which the Dorian harmonia develops.

The note A is the mese. If we consider the mese to play the dominant role, then we are given the impression of a natural minor scale. The tonic chord is A minor. The subdominant is the IV – D minor. The dominant, on the other hand – if we assume that we always need a major chord as the dominant in order to strengthen the resolution to the tonic – is the VII – G major.

The crucial point is that this centrality is not identical with the later concept of tonality, as it developed in Western music from the 17th century onward. In that later system, the “tonic” functions as a point of resolution, as the goal of a directed harmonic progression. By contrast, the ancient mese seems to function more as a field of stability, as a place where the music “stands,” without necessarily being directed toward it through tension and release – though this is not necessarily excluded.

This characteristic allows us to reconsider the relationship between ancient music and the present, not through reconstruction, but through analogy. Instead of asking “how did the ancients play?”, we may ask: how can the idea of a central note function today as an axis of listening?

The answer already exists, to some degree, within modern musical experience. Works by Mikis Theodorakis, such as Ena to Chelidoni and Tis Dikaiosynis Ilie Noite, present a strong sense of centrality. Their melodies are organized around a fundamental note, which functions not only as a point of arrival, but also as a bearer of stability and ethos. The result is a style that may be described as “majestic” and “masculine” – descriptions that are not far removed from ancient accounts of the Dorian harmonia.

This is not, of course, a matter of historical identification. Theodorakis moves within a modern musical framework, shaped by Western tonality, Byzantine tradition, and folk modal idioms. What emerges, however, is an aesthetic kinship through the concept of the center. In other words, different systems can produce similar aesthetic results when they are organized around a common axis: the existence of a stable sonic center.

This approach allows us to move beyond a narrow understanding of the “revival” of ancient music. We do not need – and it is probably not even possible – to reconstruct the past. Instead, we can make use of the concepts it has handed down to us in order to redefine contemporary creation and listening.

At this point, the comparison with the Renaissance is particularly illuminating. The scholars of that period did not have direct access to the musical practice of antiquity, yet this did not prevent them from drawing inspiration from ancient ideals. They created a new musical language, one that was not ancient Greek, but was deeply influenced by the idea of antiquity. In a similar way, we may approach the Dorian harmonia today not as a lost sonic object, but as an active concept.

The essential question, then, is not “what did the Dorian harmonia sound like?”, but “how can the idea of centrality – and, even further, of ethos – sound today?” The answer is not found in the texts, but in practice: in how sound is organized, in how the ear perceives stability, in how music creates a space in which one may “stand.”

Let us now see how the Dorian harmonia functions on our own seven-string lyre. If we tune the seven strings according to the Dorian harmonia – starting from A, and aiming for the intervallic pattern semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone (E, F, G, A, B, C, D) – we need B-flat in order to form the corresponding intervals.

Here we see that the mese is precisely the middle string, and therefore it appears that our center – tonal, if you like – is D minor. In other words, we move within the natural minor scale.*

Our tonic, then, is D minor, the subdominant is G minor, and the dominant is C major. The latter creates a strong presence and contrast with the tonic, greatly reinforcing the masculine character of this particular harmonia.

Ancient music acquires meaning not when we treat it as an archaeological artifact, but when it functions as a tool for thought. And perhaps this is its most essential legacy: not a lost sound, but an enduring challenge to listen differently.

* If the vocal range in which we are going to sing is not comfortable, we may tune with B natural instead, thereby shifting our center to A and thus moving within A natural minor.

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If you have not yet begun your journey with the lyre, we invite you to enroll in our free introductory course and become part of the growing International Lyre Society community.

The first step is open to all – the path continues as far as you wish to go.

Editorial Credits

Articles: Dr. Nikos Xanthoulis
Copy Editing:
Dr. Evangelia Kopsalidou
Paul Amiel Stewart (English Version)
Editorial Coordination & Visual Curation:
Ilias Zervas

Published by the International Lyre Society