Avgerini studied at Pallini music high school where she was taught both the theory and practice of Byzantine and European music where she picked up the ney, saz, oud, and piano. After high school, she studied Eastern music theory at the Athens Conservatory.
Since 2012 she teaches Greek folk and rebetiko singing to choirs in Athens and at musical workshops throughout Greece and Europe.
During the lessons the members of the team work collectively to move their voices to folk Mediterranean scales and rhythms, working in the repertoire of Greek traditional music and old rebetiko (Minor Asia tradition and Izmir composers).
Greek musician Avgerini Gatsi. Source: Supplied
They simulate the characteristics of the song styles and idioms of each region, but also incorporate them into contemporary vocal sounds and techniques.
Through the melodious rhymes of the speech, the team builds codes of polyphony and harmony of the voices, experimenting also variants. The team practices the mechanisms of breathing and articulating and is engaging in games of rhythm and movement.
Vowels, and small words guide them to improvise on music scales with a way they are used on each era's culture (amanes, gazel, miroloi).
She has conducted seminars at the Labyrinth workshop in Crete with Omer Erdogdular (ney), Yurdal Tokcan (oud), Zohar Fresco (rhythm), Mercan Erzincan (Turkish Chalke song), Ross Daly (composition-makam) and Socrates Sinopoulos (makam) and other vocal workshops with Spyros Sakkas.
She has collaborated with several esteemed musicians and groups including Rebetien, Alexandros Papadimitrakis, Michalis Kouloumis, Manousos Klapakis, Evgenios Voulgaris, Thimios Atzakas, James Wylie, Latinitas Nostra, String Theory Ensemble, etc.
Greek musician Avgerini Gatsi. Source: Supplied
