ALEXIA (Alexia Vassiliou)
Singer, composer and lyricist, Alexia Vassiliou, a native of Greece, was encouraged by her family to pursue a passion in music and has been performing since 1981.Her theme song for the "I am Siam" soundtrack reached the Billboard's Top 100 in 1982 and while working towards a bachelor's in performance at the Berklee College of Music,she was chosen to sing a composition by Chick Corea during one of the school's concerts. The two artists had an opportunity to work together again in 1996 on Alexia's album "In a Jazz Mood". From the late 80s through the 90s, Alexia collaborated with many European artists over the span of 20 albums, most of which became gold or platinum. She broadened her artistry in the 2000s with creative writing workshops under alternative Nobel Prize nominee and feminist activist Christiana Lambrinides and had the opportunity to meet influential authors and activists such as Toni Morrison, Djuna Barnes, and Helene Cixous. Her current album project, "Re-bE", demonstrates her improvisational, and narrative talents while Peter Massink's recent jazz album "Birds Have to Fly" showcase her compositional aptitude.
About her new album Re-bE, Alexia says:
"Re-bE for me is a very private and a very open self – dialogue.
It is a bridge that has connected me to myself, then back to others again. Anew.
To my expression, my creativity, my joy, to my own truth.
Re-bE is my ''scrap paper'', my true rehearsal, my procedure for the procedure with which I became re-connected to my own.
It was a lesson and a quest for love. To re-discover love
Love for me and love for the others
It was a lesson on trust.
Trust first in me then back to trust for the others. Anew.
…and we are what we were so restlessly searching for…'twas in us;
All bridges, all open doors and windows, all lack of towering walls and mazes, what kept us from loving, from being loved, from being understood.
The puzzle, that I had left half-done, un-done, that summer's day on our veranda in Famagusta, as the radio announced that we had just had a Coup d'état, to be followed by a Turkish invasion, was being completed piece by piece by piece. Re – bE.
And I was the one placing each piece. Piecing every piece together.
Finally with this meticulous placement, my displacement had found its home too, so did my own placement in the scheme of things, in life.
So Re-bE, is for me the delayed search and new acquaintance of self. Myself.
What a joyous occurrence!
Then, came the understanding of my past.
Every time I would 'forget', a person, a Music, a letter, a word, a song,
a kindness, a name, a synchronicity 'planned' moment would in astonishment and at the same time tenderly, find me and remind me of how blessed were my years passed.
Of course what has made everything seem blessed, has always been: Love
The exchange of it. The giving and the receiving thereof, no matter how challenging and 'not me' the years and the deeds seemed to be at the time. For this I am THANKFUL every day because now I know, how to automatically "translate" any experience, any memory into melody or word".
