Personal exhibitions (national or international) / Artwork

Café aman and café santan were “imported” in the city of Ioannina from Athens in the beginning of the 20th century. Most of them were located in the lakeside area (Molos). It was in these meeting and entertainment points that the songs later known around Greece and the United States as “Gianniotika songs” were formed. A blend of a local musical idiom, Constantinopolitan and Smyrni aman songs, songs heard all over the café aman in the major cities of the country. Samples of them have been preserved by the Jewish Amalia Vaka, who came from Ioannina, in recordings done in America (from 1927 up to 1943), as well as in a few and hard-to-find recordings of the famous Mrs Koula that took place around the same time. In any case, references to café aman prima donnas appear in chronographies: G. Pelleren, in his work “O Gianniotis”, written in 1911, refers to Ninon and Delorm, while Krystallis dedicated one of his poems to Anneta, a singer in 1886.