Karaindrou: Le Temps Perdu

Eleni Karaindrou’s music for Theo Angelopoulos’s new movie, Dust of Time starring Willem Dafoe, Irène Jacob, Michel Piccoli and Bruno Ganz, launched at the Berlin Film Festival in February.

Time Magazine has called Karaindrou “Greece’s most eloquent living composer”; for Theo Angelopoulos she is “one of the best film musicians in the world”.

Karaindrou and Angelopoulos have been creatively associated for 25 years: this is her 8th film score for him.

Her music plays a decisive role in shaping the emotional climate of the films – never more so than on Dust of Time where one of the movie’s protagonists is a musician.

Each of Karaindrou’s albums reveals an unmistakable autonomy. Dust of Time has a special, gentle and intimate character, with violin, harp, cello, oboe and accordion given central roles.

Eleni Karaindrou’s ECM discs – among them Ulysses’ Gaze (4491532), Trojan Women (4721392) and Eternity and a Day (4651252) – have been best-sellers, as well as critics’ favourites.

In Greece, Karaindrou is a star of the first order, and nowadays she is increasingly heard outside her homeland: her music was a highlight of the recent ECM Festival in Frankfurt.

Release of CD coincides with the live concert DVD Elegy of the Uprooting (1772713), making strong argument for press coverage, as well as potential for expanded retail display.

Eleni Karaindrou was born in the Greek mountain village of Teichio. She studied piano and musical theory at the Athens Hellenic Conservatory, history and archaeology at the University of Athens, and ethnomusicology and orchestration in Paris. Since 1975 she has composed music for over 20 feature films, and more than 40 theatre plays and television productions. Collaborating most often with Greek directors – above all Theo Angelopoulos, with whom she has had an ongoing creative association since 1983 – she has also worked with Harold Pinter, Chris Marker, Jules Dassin, Margarethe von Trotta and others. Karaindrou has received numerous awards including the State Music Award (Greece) for her music for Eternity and a Day, the Dmitris Mitropoulos Award for her music for theatre (1994-96), and the Fellini Award from Europa Cinema, Italy. In 2002 she received the Golden Cross of the Order of Honour from the Greek president, for her life’s work. In 2004 she was nominated for the European Film Award for her music for The Weeping Meadow, which was also Oscar-nominated. Karaindrou has been an ECM recording artist since 1991, working closely with producer Manfred Eicher in rearranging and adapting compositions originally written for stage and screen for album release.