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Antoine Karacostas

Antoine Karacostas is a 34-year-old pianist of Greek origin. In 2017, he released his first album, Trails, in which he presented a repertoire of personal compositions and arrangements of traditional Greek songs, influenced by modern jazz from New York and the Middle East; a singular mix of haunting lyricism.

The pianist enthusiastically resumed the composition to continue the work initiated with the first opus. With Insulary Tales, he began writing a series of compositions that evoke as many stories lived or imagined around the idea of insularity and the rigour of the natural elements that we experience, the poetry of the Cyclades landscapes and the extraordinary encounters that we make there. In addition, there are two arrangements on themes by rebetiko singer and composer Vassilis Tsitsanis, whose music has accompanied him since he discovered it.

With Anders Ulrich on double bass and Simon Bernier on drums, the trio is united by five years of common musical and human adventures. And although this configuration is the foundation of Antoine Karacostas' music, the new album was an opportunity to invite two musicians whose lyricism fascinates him and for whom he wrote some of the tracks on the album: Federico Casagrande on guitar and Andreas Polyzogopoulos on trumpet and flugelhorn.

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Album Review

Antoine Karacostas: Insulary Tales

Read "Insulary Tales" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Paris based pianist Antoine Karacostas may have set out to write the music for Insulary Tales to evoke the idea of insularity and one's individual response to the natural world around them, but in the end he's created an emotional, ten song cycle universal to us all. A recording of hushed, sustained beauty and lyricism, each track offers its own lush reward. Taking his inspiration from the Greek urban music of the late Grecian composer Vassaillis Tsitsanis as ...

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Between breathless swing races and finely chiselled lyrical ballads, pianist Antoine Karacostas’ debut album has its roots in jazz, Middle Eastern and Greek music. FIP, album jazz de la semaine

Thus Greece inspires Antoine Karacostas, it leads him towards his ambiguous scales and breathes into his music its light like no other.[...] The pianist finds here a path that adorns his first album with singular sparkles. Les Inrocks «10 French jazz albums to listen in 2017»

On “Trails”, Antoine Karacostas combines the music of his homeland of Greece with modern jazz language to create a truly unique statement

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Insulary Tales

Parallel Records
2019

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Trails

Self Produced
0

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Aharisti (Ungrateful)

From: Insulary Tales
By Antoine Karacostas

O Zitianos Tis Agapis

From: Trails
By Antoine Karacostas

Videos

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