Going where the music takes her

'When I sing, I always make one mistake', dynamic Greek singer Savina Yannatou tells Arminta Wallace.

'I don't have any political or social plan. I just like the songs," says the Greek singer Savina Yannatou. In person she is slim and softly-spoken. On stage she is dynamite.

Her publicity material describes her as a diva; but diva is way too small a word for this lady. One minute she floats on an eerily perfect soprano, the next she's buzzing like a Tuvan throat singer. She can do Arabic melisma and bandit music from Sardinia and something that sounds not unlike Stravinsky. And that's just the musical languages. In terms of actual languages, how many does she sing in? "I'm not sure," she says. "Twelve?" A quick trawl through the track-listings of the booklet which accompanies her CD Terra Nostra produces nine: Arabic, Aramaic, Berber, Bulgarian, Italian, Provencal, Sardinian, Spanish and a Caribbean dialect, in addition to her native Greek. But there are more; Corsican, for instance. She doesn't speak these languages, she insists. "And when I sing, I always make one mistake . . ."

Yannatou, who performs in Cork tomorrow, went through a classical vocal training and began her career by collaborating with Greek composers on art songs. But she was always interested in free vocal improvisation. "When I was very young I liked to improvise with melodies," she says. "Slowly, slowly I discovered that I can do different things with my voice." She did this, she says, by listening to other singers and copying their sound. Then a Greek record company invited her to record an album of Sephardic songs with some traditional musicians. "They had already planned the CD and were searching for a singer. I knew some of the songs, and liked them very much."

The CD was called Primavera en Salonico - Spring in Thessaloniki - and so, eventually, was the band. They have now made four albums together. "I was very lucky that I met these musicians," she says. They are, quite simply, superb. Small wonder that they are all well known in their own fields; the percussionist is a composer, she says, the violinist "very famous" in Greece. Yannatou herself works with the National Theatre and is about to embark on a project with a video artist from New York. "But I," she says sternly, "am not a composer." Leaning against the arm of the sofa where she is sitting is a kanoun, the Middle Eastern stringed instrument whose shimmering, metallic sound is quite unmistakeable. It is slightly more geometrically shaped, in its zip-up case, than a guitar and it belongs to Kostas Vomvolos, who has gone in search of coffee. What, I wonder aloud, is a Greek musician doing playing a Turkish instrument? Yannatou laughs - a deep, throaty chuckle.

"He is not a kanoun player, Kostas. He is a composer and accordionist. The kanoun he plays by himself - and I think he has his own technique because sometimes he beats it, puts paper on the strings, does all kinds of different things . . ." Her hands flutter eloquently in the air. "These are not Greek instruments, but now many young people in Greece are interested in them. This music is a part of our heritage. Greeks and Turks were living together for many years, so many songs were played in different ways."

One of the songs on Terra Nostra, Kadifé, is actually three songs - Greek, Turkish and Sephardic - which share the same tune. On other tracks, the main vocal line is taken by a Tunisian singer, Lamia Bedioui, while Yannatou improvises an intricate accompaniment. The title of her new album, which is due out later this month, is Sumiglia, a Corsican word which means "similarities".

It is this crossing of boundaries - linguistic, political, religious and musical - which makes Savina Yannatou such an unusual artist in a part of the world where drawing lines and digging in behind them has, more often, been the socio-political norm. How conscious has she been of this element of her musical career? She shakes her head.

"It is not a conscious thing. After the Sephardic songs, we decided to continue with the songs of the Mediterranean. It was a natural way to expand the material of the band." It is only in retrospect, she says, that people have begun to rationalise her approach to music-making. "After September 11th, for example, I had already planned to give a concert with this Tunisian singer - Arab songs, together with Christian and Sephardic. This was a complete coincidence, of course; it was really not planned in any political way. But there was an article about it in the newspaper. A political article. And I'm happy if people feel this - that the music is contributing to something outside itself."

What, if anything, does this prove? That music transcends boundaries? Or that, in cultural terms, the boundaries don't really exist? "Well, I don't know if they exist or not. But people communicate anyway," she says. "Songs travel. Sometimes they travel very far. For example, there is a song from Israel which I like very much. It has lyrics by an Israeli poet, but the melody is Bedouin. Very far apart - yet very close. Of course when there is a political crisis everything changes. It is very strange, how people can live together, then suddenly something breaks. It happened in Yugoslavia. I mean, I never lived there so I don't know. But it's obvious that people were living together, and were living OK, and then . . ."

It may be too presumptuous to claim a role for art in healing Europe's deep, and painful rifts. But the Sounds of the Balkans gig tomorrow which opens the Music Migrations festival at Cork 2005 will make a good start by bringing together musicians from different countries and cultures in some startling - and, no doubt, hugely creative - collaborations. Yannatou and Primavera en Salonico will play with the Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz and his Magnetic Band, then Yannatou will join the 43-strong Bulgarian choir Angelite.

"I will sing a Greek song and they will sing a Bulgarian one," she says. "At the same time."

A world of events

Leafing through the programme for the Music Migrations: A Continent Undivided festival, which runs throughout this month at Cork 2005, it's hard to believe that a world music event on this scale is happening in Ireland.

As Mary McCarthy, programme director at Cork 2005, explains, Music Migrations is more than just a gathering of some of the most stellar names on the European ethnic music scene.

"It's not just a matter of a one-off concert, or even a series of one-off concerts," she says. "The whole series is aimed at building up a musical narrative - the story of music from the peripheries, music between different cultures, exchange and challenge. This kind of curated programming is the essence of the capital of culture idea. Of course the concerts will be fantastic occasions, and hugely enjoyable. But they will also immerse people in music to an unprecedented degree, and empower them to think a little about the art form as well."

The whole thing kicks off with Sounds of the Balkans (including Savina Yannatou), commissioned for the Athens Cultural Olympiad in 2003, which takes place at the Cork Opera House tomorrow. On Saturday March 12th the wildly talented (and, when they get going, just plain wild) Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks will be joined on stage at the Opera House by the Macedonian brass virtuosi of Koçani Orkestar, while on Sunday night the Hungarian electro-acoustic "21st century wedding band" Besh O Drom will play the Half Moon Theatre.

The following Saturday night it will be the turn of the Italian star Enzo Avitabile and his group Bottari - yes, they do play olive storage barrels - at the Everyman Palace, supported by the cutting-edge Polish accordionists Motion Trio. That will be followed on March 20th by the feelgood vibes of Radio Tarifa, a group of Andalusia based musicians who explore the musical place where electric guitar meets flamenco and Africa meets Europe. And on March 30th the stunning fado singer Mariza will bring the opening chunk of Music Migrations to a close at the Savoy theatre with her contemporary brand of Portuguese blues.