SAVINA YANNATOU / SOFIA LABROPOULOU / CHRISTIAN REINER
concert
Fri. 13. February, 19:30
SAVINA YANNATOU Vocals / SOFIA LABROPOULOU Kanun / CHRISTIAN REINER Speaker and Vocals
The second edition of Unbounded Sounds music series opens with a premiere that brings together three powerful artistic voices in a trio formation. Exploring the fluid boundaries between voice, text, and string resonance, the concert is rooted in modal traditions, open-form improvisation, and experimental language, inviting the audience into a sonic space where words become music and music becomes narrative.
Location: ORF – Radiokulturhaus (Studio 3) (Argentinierstraße 30A, 1040 Wien)
Accessibility: The venue is wheelchair accessible.
workshop
Sat. 14. February, 12:00 - 18:00
SAVINA YANNATOU Workshop on Free Vocal Improvisation
In this workshop, we explore new ways of using the voice and perceiving the sounds around us, through simple, playful exercises. These exercises are not technical. Instead, they open personal pathways to vocal expression, encouraging each participant to discover and develop their own sound in a unique and individual way. Melody and harmony are not the focus here. The human voice is approached as a pure, natural sound.
Location: mica – music Austria Seminarraum (Stiftgasse 29, 1070 Wien)
Duration: 6 hours
Time: 12:00 – 18:00 (with pause)
Participation fee: 80 euros
Language: English
Accessibility: The workshop room is wheelchair accessible
No previous experience is required. The workshop is open not only to musicians and singers, but also to actors, educators, kindergarten teachers, psychologists, and anyone curious to explore the sonic possibilities of their own voice.
About the artists
Savina Yannatou
Vocals
“Her voice and her interpretive capacity truly are an extraordinary gift.” Volker Doberstein – Jazz Podium
Savina Yannatou is a highly acclaimed Greek vocalist, composer, and improviser whose work spans traditional Mediterranean music, contemporary composition, and free improvisation. Renowned for her distinctive timbre and expressive range, she brings a unique voice to every project — shaped by listening, risk-taking, and a deep sense of artistic freedom.
She began her career working with the composer Lena Platonos in Greece and performing Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, before turning to vocal experimentation and improvisation, notably through her collaboration with Peter Kowald. She has since collaborated with a wide array of composers and musicians including Lena Platonos, Nikos Mamangakis, Barry Guy, Günter Baby Sommer, and Gerald Preinfalk.
Since 1993, she performs with the ensemble Primavera en Salonico, reinterpreting songs from Sephardic, Greek, Arabic, and Balkan traditions with subtle experimentation and modal nuance. Together they have toured internationally and released critically acclaimed albums on ECM Records.
Also, Yannatou teaches experimental vocal techniques and improvisation in workshops around the world.
Sofia Labropoulou
Kanun player, composer, improviser and artistic director of Unbounded Sounds
“Her composing, playing and selection of featured artists show that she masters her instrument, but does not put it in front. Her compositions give space for the story to develop and for others to shine.” Bojan Djordjevic – WMCE
Sofia Labropoulou is a kanun player, composer, and improviser who has developed a distinct sound by masterfully blending the worlds of East Mediterranean folk, classical Ottoman, Western Medieval, experimental, and contemporary music.
Classically trained in piano and classical percussion from the age of eight, she fell instantly in love with the kanun almost a decade later. After earning her diploma in Byzantine music, she moved to Istanbul in 2003 to pursue her passion for the kanun and study Ottoman music.
As a soloist, she collaborates with renowned composers, musicians, and orchestras from around the world, composes music, and leads kanun and Greek folk music masterclasses internationally.
Her first personal album, Sisyphus (Odradek Records), was released in December 2020, and she is currently completing her first solo kanun album, Spiral.
She is based in Vienna, and she is the founder and artistic director of the Unbounded Sounds music series.
Christian Reiner
Speaker and vocals
“He juggles fragments of text… which he lets resound in all registers of his extremely versatile voice: the spectrum ranges from deep guttural belches to rolling and hissing consonants, all the way to ecstatic yodels. At times, one believes one is listening to a muezzin or experiencing a Sufi priest in dialogue with a Tibetan overtone monk.”Kleine Zeitung – Bernhard Bayer
Christian Reiner is a speaker of poetry, prose and experimental texts as well as voice in music, theater and media productions. The spectrum of his work ranges from performances of contemporary compositions to concerts of improvised music and interdisciplinary projects. He works with improvising musicians and dancers and has developed his own way of acting with the spoken word and the possibilities of the human voice in a musical context.
Reiner’s recordings of poems by various authors have been released on ECM Records since 2012, including Friedrich Hölderlin’s “Tower Poems” and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “The Land of Work”.
Reiner shows improvisation with the spoken word in which the lyrics are also improvised and arise in the context of the music in various bands and projects. His work focuses primarily on the intermediate area between language and music, but he is also a speaker for film, radio and television.
Born in Munich in 1970, he studied Phonetics at the Ludwig Maximilian University and Speech Art and Speech Education at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts. In 1999 he received a scholarship from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation and moved to Berlin, currently he lives in Vienna.
In Cooperation with ORF – Radiokulturhaus